[Editorial] What Kim Byung-jun Did

Presidential Chief Policy Adviser Kim Byung-jun, who has driven major policies of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, resigned. Kim was involved in many policies, including real estate measures, reform of the education sector, balanced national development, reform of the government and resolution of bipolarization. He injected the concept of balance and equality, which the administration pursues, into every policy with little results.

Kim declared war against housing prices in February last year, saying, “I don’t intend to support the construction sector by reviving the housing market.” When the housing price kept going up, he poured out anti-market remarks: “The real estate policy is hard to change as much as the constitution”; “The tax bomb is yet to come”; and “Let’s pay attention to activities of civic organizations.” The housing price rose and the construction market slowed down after his remarks.

The core of economic policy is to help money flow smoothly in the country. However, those who hold power in policymaking, including Kim, chose only policies which will not help investment, consumption, housing transactions, housing construction and job creation in the related sectors. As a result, there are more poor people in the lower income brackets, and people in all income brackets became poorer.

Kim was a representative policy planner in the Roh administration along with Lee Jung-woo, former chairman of the presidential policy planning commission. Lee insisted on distribution-centered policies and drove real estate measures which suppressed the market. Kim’s policy was also in the same direction.

It is very unfortunate for the public that President Roh selected such people as the brain of policy out of so many scholars and has relied on them for so long. Improvement of distribution cannot be done in a country with lower economic growth than some advanced countries, let alone most competitor countries, they argued. In many cases, policies that Lee and Kim insisted on have caused bigger adverse effects than their expected effects. That is because the two lacked imagination about complicated repercussions of policies and did not have a good sense of balance in the first place. If they created an atmosphere in which economic players could work, earn and spend more actively, the country’s economy would have been more vibrant.

Some say that President Roh will appoint Kim as a Cabinet member. This makes one wonder who in the administration would take the responsibility of failure of policy and state affairs. If the administration thinks that this is an appointment which ignores a proven failure, that is the problem of the administration.