TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — DPP Spokesperson Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城) warned Monday that if opposition lawmakers fail to complete their review of the government's 2026 budget by the end of August, the legislature could be forced to review the 2026 and 2027 budgets at the same time.
Lee said only two of the legislature's eight committees had completed their budget reviews as of Monday, per NOWNews. He added that the Cabinet submitted the budget proposal to the Legislative Yuan on Aug. 29, 2025, and accused the opposition of delaying the review for 319 days.
Lee also accused opposition lawmakers of seeking sweeping cuts to government agencies, citing a proposal by KMT Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) to eliminate advertising budgets for the culture ministry and 12 other government agencies, per UDN.
The DPP further criticized the opposition for not proposing comparable cuts to the Legislative Yuan's own budget, saying the only proposed reductions came from DPP lawmakers, per SETN. DPP Legislative Caucus Secretary-General Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said it was a "double standard" for the legislature to make only limited cuts to its own budget while pursuing much deeper reductions to the Cabinet's spending plans.
Responding to similar criticism from the media on Sunday, KMT Legislative Caucus Secretary-General Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said reviewing the budget is not a competition to determine which party can cut the most spending, per Liberty Times. He said the KMT caucus's guiding principle is to ensure that "every Taiwan dollar is spent on the people, not on the pillows of bureaucrats."
