Huang Guochang criticized Qingde for his double standard and was slapped in the face by the legal circle: local autonomous finance is completely different from the unconstitutional amendment of the law by the Legislative Yuan

President Lai Qingde attended the founding meeting of the campaign headquarters of Pingtung County Magistrate candidate Zhou Chunmi today (17th). (Extracted from the live broadcast of the campaign)

Lai Qingde attended the inauguration meeting of Zhou Chunmi's campaign headquarters today (17th) and learned that Pingtung will subsidize the health insurance premiums for the elderly over 65 years old next year. He praised on the spot that "this is appropriate."

Yesterday, the Legislative Yuan read the Elderly Welfare Law for the third time. The central government will bear 40 billion in annual elderly health insurance premiums. The Executive Yuan accused it of being unconstitutional. People's Party Chairman Huang Guochang immediately questioned Lai Ching-te and the Executive Yuan's "double stance and what kind of tactics they are playing." In this regard, experts in the legal field pointed out that the opposition party's questioning is a "de-contextualized criticism", and the two are completely different in terms of constitutional structure. Under the premise of "living within their means and maintaining sound finances," local self-government groups have the Pingtung County government raise its own budget to take care of county residents. This falls within the self-government welfare authority granted to local governments by the Local System Law and is completely legal and constitutional.

Legal insiders say that the Legislative Yuan's forced amendment to specify that the central government will spend nearly 40 billion yuan more each year violates Article 70 of the Constitution, which states that "the Legislative Yuan shall not propose additional expenditures" and Article 91 of the Budget Law, and infringes upon the budget preparation power of the Executive Yuan. In Pingtung, "the local government pays for itself", while in the Legislative Yuan, it "legislates to force the national treasury to foot the bill." The two are completely different in nature, and there is no doubt about double standards.