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Reckless populist pledges

Posted March. 30, 2012 06:52,   

한국어

Municipal and provincial governments across the country have asked the central government for money, claiming that their budgets for free child care for infants and children will run out in June or July. The free child care program, which began in March this year, provides 200,000 won (176 U.S. dollars) per month to 5-year olds who attend child care centers and infants to 2-year olds regardless of their parents` income. Officials say they have to pay 350 billion won (307.9 million dollars) this year alone due to the increase in the pool of candidates despite 50-percent support from the central government.

The free child care program was initiated by Hwang Woo-yeo, floor leader of the ruling Grand National Party (now the Saenuri Party), in August last year. He said, “We need to increase free child care by using available sources as much as possible. It costs far less than 1 trillion won (880 million dollars) for child care for babies under a year old.” Due to lack of financial sources, however, municipal and provincial governments are likely to go bankrupt and the policy is unlikely to continue.

The free school lunch program for all students, which was initiated by the main opposition Democratic United Party last year, is also facing a fund shortage. As other budgets were cut for the program, schools had to cut the number of classes and lay off native English-speaking teachers from abroad. Many schools have postponed performing building maintenance or purchasing science experiment tools. Seoul educational superintendent Kwak No-hyun and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, both of whom had championed the free lunch program, are now passing the budget for the program to each other. Kwak mentioned organic school meals but the quality of school food has decreased due to inflation, which has limited the purchase of food.

Over the past year, both the ruling and opposition parties have created big problems. When the number of candidates for the welfare programs rises next year, the budget will see a bigger deficit and governments will no longer be able to transfer money from other budgets. Politicians and the government should make a new policy framework for free child care and free school meals. Though not knowing how to finance the programs, rival parties are competing to announce welfare policies. The Democratic United Party has pledged free medical services, claiming that it will reduce the people’s burden on health care, while Saenuri pledged 100,000 (88 dollars) to 200,000 (176 dollars) won for child care fees for children aged zero to 5. Experts say both parties seriously lack feasibility in policy implementation and financial sources.

The Democratic Party of Japan won a parliamentary majority by pledging a “free welfare package of policies” such as child subsidies, free highway use and free high school education. It now has its back to the wall after repealing the pledges due to lack of financial sources. Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi apologized at the Diet Tuesday, saying, “I didn’t know it when we made the pledges.” Korean politicians should learn a lesson from Japan before they will have to apologize for making reckless populist pledges.