Taiwan's government unveiled a near-NT$4 trillion (US$125 billion) budget this week that sets aside more than NT$600 billion (US$18.8 billion) in direct cash programs for citizens — while shelving, for the second year running, a NT$33.5 billion (US$1.05 billion) pay raise for military personnel, police officers, and firefighters.
The sequence of events was swift and deliberate.
On August 14, Taiwan's legislature, the Legislative Yuan, passed the current-year central government budget after cutting NT$48 billion (US$1.5 billion), bringing the total to just under NT$3 trillion (US$93.8 billion).
Three days later, the Presidential Office announced that next year's spending plan would add NT$235.7 billion (US$7.4 billion) to fund a NT$10,000 (US$312) universal cash payout for every resident in Taiwan.
At the same moment, the Executive Yuan declared it would refuse to countersign or publish two laws the legislature had just passed: an amendment to the Cable TV Act and the Children's Growth and Future Accounts Act. That brings the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government's cumulative tally of what critics call "three noes" legislation — no countersignature, no publication, no implementation — to seven.
Executive Power Rewrites the Budget on Its Own Terms
The executive-legislative standoff has become a signature of governance under President Lai Ching-te.
The opposition had championed a Children's Future Accounts scheme — estimated at more than NT$210 billion (US$6.6 billion) for its first year — that would establish savings accounts for children up to age 18. The government refused to implement it after the legislature passed it.
The administration's substitute is more expensive: NT$373 billion (US$11.7 billion) for a new "zero to 18 growth allowance" disbursed directly as cash, requiring no individual account setup and — critically — no acknowledgment of the opposition's role in pushing the issue onto the agenda.
Taiwan People's Party (TPP) chair Huang Kuo-chang put the opposition's frustration plainly: "Lai Ching-te believes only he is allowed to give out money."
The combined price of the two cash programs — the universal handout plus the children's allowance — exceeds NT$600 billion (US$18.8 billion). That figure is larger than the national defense procurement budget, which even after this year's legislative cuts remains above NT$1 trillion (US$31.3 billion).
Weapons, it seems, are funded. People are asked to wait.
NT$33.5 Billion Too Small for a Near-NT$4 Trillion Budget
Which brings the pay adjustment back into focus. The NT$33.5 billion (US$1.05 billion) package for military personnel, police, and firefighters has been deferred since last year. The government's latest explanation: negotiations with the legislature in October.
The figure amounts to roughly 5% of the two combined cash programs — a fraction of the spending the administration has shown no hesitation in committing.
For a government that invokes whole-of-society resilience and cross-strait preparedness as foundational priorities, the omission is hard to square. Police and firefighters are the first responders in any mass mobilization scenario. Military morale and retention depend as much on compensation as on hardware.
Lai holds the appointments of military brass and police leadership. This editorial argues he understands precisely what it means to keep them waiting.
DPP Politicians Confront Their Own Recorded Words
The cash handout announcement triggered what political observers are calling a "double-standard anthology" — a wave of social media compilations documenting DPP officials making the opposite argument during last year's mass recall campaign against opposition lawmakers.
Lai himself had said: "You probably don't even need this NT$10,000 (US$312) — it'd be spent on groceries."
Premier Cho Jung-tai called a similar proposal something that "might buy a refrigerator or a remote-controlled toy plane — no benefit to national development."
Legislator Shen Po-yang went furthest, describing universal cash handouts as "a Communist Party tactic — first impoverish Taiwan, then unify it."
Legislators Su Chiao-hui and Wu Si-yao employed phrases like "legislative chaos" and "the largest-scale and most outrageous future vote-buying in history."
Each has since offered a rationalization. Shen now argues the handouts are acceptable because they draw on AI dividend revenues rather than debt. Su draws a constitutional distinction between executive-initiated spending — which she deems legitimate — and legislative overreach, which is not.
On their own technical terms, neither argument is entirely wrong. Together, they illustrate a governing reflex that has grown familiar in Taiwan's current political climate: what the opposition proposes is a threat; what the ruling party implements is policy.
A Budget Timed for the Next Election Cycle
Whether the cash programs constitute vote-buying depends on when you measure. County and city elections are four months away, and payments would not arrive until next year — so the most immediate charge does not land squarely.
But 2027 is the pivotal year leading into the early 2028 presidential election. By that measure, the programs function simultaneously as near-term political messaging and longer-term electoral groundwork.
The NT$4 trillion (US$125 billion) draft budget, NT$600 billion (US$18.8 billion) in cash programs included, heads to the legislature on August 20. Opposition lawmakers have procedural options: this year, they used selective budget freezes to delay spending they opposed while keeping the government running.
Whether they deploy similar tactics now — and whether the administration would simply refuse to disburse even an approved cash policy — points to the larger dysfunction between Taiwan's two branches. Governance has become performance; negotiation has given way to maneuver.
Taiwan's universal cash handout tradition stretches back to the Lee Teng-hui era. Economists have consistently criticized such transfers as fiscally imprudent. The public has consistently accepted them without complaint.
With the central government budget having doubled over the past decade from roughly NT$2 trillion (US$62.5 billion) to nearly NT$4 trillion (US$125 billion), lectures on fiscal discipline have run out of credible speakers.
What hasn't lost its audience is the question of who gets to hand out the money — and that, more than any line-item dispute, is what this budget is actually about.
