Admiring Cabinet’s budgetary acrobatics

Over the past few days, opposition lawmakers have harshly criticized the Cabinet for “showing contempt for the legislature” by spending all NT$500 million (US$15.85 million) of the Executive Yuan’s budget that had previously been frozen by lawmakers for the 2025 fiscal year.

The story began in December 2024, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) were reviewing the central government’s budget. Angered by then-Cabinet secretary-general Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) leaving that legislative committee meeting without authorization, the lawmakers in January last year responded by voting to freeze NT$500 million in Executive Yuan funding.

However, after combing through the government’s final accounts for last year submitted at the end of last month, the opposition lawmakers were nearly apoplectic. Not only had the NT$500 million not remained under lock and key, but it had been completely spent.

For those familiar with government accounting, the controversy — which opposition lawmakers have denounced as bypassing legislative oversight — is a case of a rather entertaining bureaucratic sleight of hand.

Opposition lawmakers, in their eagerness to flex their authority, had overlooked an important detail. In their proposal, the KMT and TPP’s resolution simply stated that NT$500 million of Executive Yuan funding was to be frozen, but neglected to specify any particular budget item or program.

As the legislature had not specified which funds were off-limits, the Cabinet assigned the frozen NT$500 million to personnel expenses, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said. Civil servants’ salaries, pensions and related remuneration have strong statutory and constitutional protections. The Cabinet said that it was legally obligated to make those payments.

The Executive Yuan played its apparent submission as an offensive move, finding a legal pathway for it to spend the money. In the end, the Cabinet effectively put the entire NT$500 million to use, a maneuver that spared operating expenses and construction and procurement spending from bearing the full weight of the freeze.

While KMT and TPP lawmakers have been protesting angrily, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) offered only a brief response to media questions on Friday, saying that the DGBAS had already explained the matter in accordance with the law.

With little legal recourse, it seemed that all opposition lawmakers could do is vent to the media that, in the words of KMT Culture and Communications Committee Director Charles Chen (陳以信), the Legislative Yuan “might as well close its doors” in light of the Cabinet’s workaround.

The act of budgetary subterfuge is another demonstration that, even under the political constraints of a minority government, the administration does not necessarily have to sit helplessly. When faced with politically motivated, borderline frenzied budget cuts and freezes; government officials can still respond with technical expertise and legal arguments.

This battle over government accounting not only demonstrates the political resilience of a minority government, but also shows that if legislative oversight is reduced to political score-settling without technical rigor, lawmakers might ultimately find themselves struck by their own boomerang. It has been a battle of political and bureaucratic wits, and is certainly a worthy piece of gossip.