Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae, locked in a running feud with Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok, traded pointed remarks with him over the province's finances. Choo likened the province's fiscal condition to an emergency room patient and called for stronger local revenue, while Kim said he would examine Gyeonggi's particular circumstances separately from the broader problems facing local government finances.
The Democratic Party held a budget policy meeting on the 21st at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government's northern office in Uijeongbu, discussing the province's fiscal strain and options for central government funding. "Gyeonggi is the only metropolitan province where the population is still growing, yet once welfare spending is covered there is no fiscal room left," Choo said. She proposed raising the local consumption tax rate to 40.3% from the current 25.3% and allocating 5% of national corporate tax revenue to metropolitan-level governments.
At a supreme council meeting held earlier at the site, Choo compared the province's finances to a patient and stressed that austerity was unavoidable. "What the current administration inherited was a budget with only nine months of life left," she said. "What we are doing now is not cutting sound projects but operating to save a patient." She pushed back against criticism of the belt-tightening, asking, "Is it right to confront the surgeon and ask why the patient was hurt?"
Kim expressed sympathy for the province's fiscal difficulties but argued that Gyeonggi's unique situation should be distinguished from the wider issue of local government finances. "We will work to resolve Gyeonggi's weak fiscal position, where the revenue base does not match its contribution and burden in industry and infrastructure," he said. "We will pull together the links between the general issues and the special circumstances, separate what needs to be separated, and discuss it at the party level."
He also noted that Gyeonggi's case would need broad support to be persuasive. "It is important that the province explain the situation together with the party," Kim said. "Otherwise this could become quite difficult."
Because budget policy meetings are normally devoted to regional agenda items and securing central government funds, the tension between the two drew added attention. Kim and Choo have clashed publicly in recent weeks over the nomination of Kim Ji-yong as head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, budget cuts to the province's DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, and a dispute over Choo's election consulting expenses.
