Stop vote-garnering populist bills

Populist bills abound in the National Assembly ahead of the April 11 parliamentary elections. In addition to several bills that have come under fire, including one to help customers of troubled savings banks, a number of bills are set to eat away at government coffers and waste taxpayers’ money. These bills have plausible purposes and most of them are aimed at winning votes from certain regions and organizations. The Prime Minister’s Office has stepped forward to prevent more than 10 populist bills from passing parliament. The government should never fail to block such bills from being signed into law.

A case in point is a special bill on the relocation of military airports based in cities. Billions of dollars will be needed to relocate one military airport. Despite government opposition due to lack of concrete budget formulation, the bill nevertheless has been passed by the National Assembly`s Legislation and Judiciary Committee. A revision bill on helping neighborhoods around power plants aims to expand the scope of such neighborhoods from a radius of 5 kilometers to 10. If this bill becomes law, 561.8 billion won (496 million U.S. dollars) of budget will be needed every year just for nuclear power plants. This will lead to an increase in electricity bills. Another bill on liquefied natural gas receiving terminals requires plans to help those living within the 5-kilometer radius from LNG receiving terminals. The government fears that residents near other LNG facilities, LPG, oil stockpile and chemical facilities will also request state support should this bill pass parliament.

Populist bills need a massive amount of public funds and will cause public utility fees and prices to rise. The whole nation will bear the cost of benefiting people in specific areas. Such bills, which had been pending in parliament because of these problems, passed the respective parliamentary committees around the end of December last year, when the National Assembly handled budget.

Despite their good intentions, the bills cannot pass parliament without plans to raise the required funds. A special law on compensation for losses from mass slaughter in Geochang in the Korean War needs 85 billion won (75 million dollars). If the scope of victims is expanded, another 25 trillion won (22 billion dollars) will be needed. Implementing a revision bill on men of national merit that urges differentiated payments of allowances depending on medal grades will require 29 billion won (26 million dollars). Men of national merit now uniformly receive a monthly allowance of 180,000 won (159 dollars).

Lawmakers are recklessly seeking to enact laws to benefit voters in their constituencies with government budget. Such efforts are in full swing in the run-up to the April 11 parliamentary elections. From the time lawmakers introduce a bill, they should make it clear how the required funds will be raised and mobilized.