Cabinet urges early pass of bill for shopping vouchers

At an extraordinary Cabinet meeting yesterday, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan formally approved the plan to given NT$3,600 in shopping coupons to each citizen, regardless of age, gender or income levels, before the 2009 Lunar New Year.

The plan calls for an outlay of NT$82.9 billion.

The Cabinet looks forward to the passage of the special budget bill by the Legislative Yuan before the end of December to pave the way for the distribution of shopping vouchers in late January, government spokeswoman Vanessa Yea-ping Shih said.

In an effort to avert a possible boycott of the bill by opposition lawmakers and smooth the way for the distribution of the coupons before the Lunar New Year shopping season, senior officials from the Presidential Office, the Cabinet and the Legislature met Sunday evening to finalize the program.

It was decided at the meeting that the budget for the consumption voucher program will be handled separately instead of being tacked onto a larger four-year NT$500 billion economic stimulus package that covers some large-scale public infrastructure projects, according to Shih.

Under the program, each citizen, including newborns, naturalized foreign spouses, and overseas residents who still hold the ID cards of the nation will receive the new year bonus which has to be used to purchase products or services before the end of September 2009.

Legislators of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) urged opposition lawmakers not to block the plan because it will not only provide financial aid to the needy compatriots but will also help enterprises to improve business operations and retain their employees.

Legislative process

They aim to ratify the voucher statute on Dec. 5 and complete the legislative process for the special budget on Dec. 26, one day after the Christmas.

The KMT lawmakers also welcomed the opposition Democratic Progressive Party to present its own alternative version of the program for simultaneous discussion and deliberation instead of blocking the procedure.

The DPP, which had ill-prepared Taiwan for the onslaught of the global recession in the past eight long years, has showed on signs of speeding up the legislative procedure.

DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsan quoted party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen as criticizing the KMT voucher plan as a move to humiliate Taiwanese people, making them look like Americans queuing up in long lines up during the Great Depression in the 1930s for government handouts.

The DPP also remains adamant on giving cash — not shopping coupons — to all citizens for fearing of possible chaos and frauds in the distribution process.

As high as 89.66 percent of the office workers back the government’s shopping voucher and believe the plan will help boost consumer spending and prop up economic activities in the current time of recession, according to a survey by the 1111 job bank.

Around 5.6 percent revealed that they will try to exchange them for cash.

KMT lawmakers reiterated their support for giving out vouchers because many people tend to save the cash money instead of making purchases to spur economic growth.

One of them said the DPP should avoid spoiling the plan that will benefit all the people and the economy if cannot present better policies.

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