KMT criticizes Lai’s handout initiative
By Lin Hsin-han and Chen Chih-cheng / Staff reporters
President William Lai’s (賴清德) announcement yesterday of a NT$10,000 cash handout represented a major reversal of his administration’s policy, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said, calling it the “ultimate political irony.”
Lai yesterday said the proposed central government budget for next year would include NT$235.7 billion (US$7.4 billion) to fund a universal NT$10,000 cash handout, citing strong economic growth fueled by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee Director Charles Chen (陳以信) said the KMT had proposed a NT$10,000 cash handout as early as May, when 23 KMT lawmakers submitted a bill that passed its first reading in the Legislative Yuan and was sent to a committee for review.
A person holds New Taiwan dollar notes in front of a screen showing the Web site for the government’s cash handout program in Taipei in November last year.
Photo: CNA
A separate KMT proposal calling for excess tax revenue to be prioritized for cash handouts has also passed a first reading, he said.
He said the Lai administration had completely reversed course on cash handouts by announcing a NT$10,000 cash handout next year and framing it as an “AI dividend shared by all.”
Chen called the decision to announce the policy ahead of local elections in November the “ultimate political irony.”
When the KMT proposed the NT$10,000 cash handout, the Executive Yuan at the time called for fiscal discipline, saying that priority should go to national defense, major infrastructure and debt repayment, he said.
“I want to ask President Lai: How did the NT$235.7 billion budget go from being a financial burden in May to suddenly becoming an ‘AI dividend’ in August?” Chen said.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said Lai was applying a double standard.
In posts on Facebook and Threads titled “Lai’s Nth time that Green can, but you cannot” — with green referring to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — Huang wrote that opposition lawmakers jointly pushed last year for a NT$10,000 cash handout as a way to “return tax revenue to the people” only to face fierce criticism from the DPP at the time.
In his “Ten Talks on Unity,” Lai said the measure was “unnecessary,” while Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said the proposal would not benefit the country and could only be used to buy refrigerators and remote-controlled airplanes, Huang said.
The NT$10,000 cash handout proposed earlier this year as a “national support payment” was also criticized by the DPP as a “money pit” bill, he added.
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