The National Assembly held a plenary session three days before the June 1 local elections and voted on the second supplementary budget (additional budget) for this year, worth a total of 62 trillion won, to compensate for the losses of small business owners and self-employed people who have suffered from prolonged COVID-19.
It has been 16 days since the government's supplementary budget bill was submitted to the National Assembly on the 13th, three days after the inauguration of the Yun Seok-yeol government.
It is the result of a dramatic agreement at the last minute between the ruling and opposition parties, conscious of the votes in the local elections.
This is an increase of 2.6 trillion won from the 59.4 trillion won submitted by the government and is the largest supplementary budget ever.
The central government's expenditure, excluding the expenditure for relocation according to the law, has increased from 36.4 trillion won to 39 trillion won through discussions between the ruling and opposition parties.
Earlier, the ruling and opposition party leaders reached an agreement on the supplementary budget bill after negotiating near the 'deadline' when the term of National Assembly Speaker Park Byung-seok, who served as the first half of the 21st National Assembly, would end.
The supplementary budget bill was processed about 1 hour and 30 minutes before the end of Park's term of office at 12:00 p.m.
The supplementary budget bill was passed with 246 votes in favour, 1 against (Rep. Yong Hye-in of the Basic Income Party), and 5 abstentions (Min Hyung-bae, Yang Lee Won-young, Kang Min-jeong, Choi Hye-young, Justice Party).
The supplementary budget bill passed by the National Assembly contains provisions to provide compensation for losses ranging from 6 million won to 10 million won in consideration of the level of sales and damage to small businesses and the characteristics of each industry.
With the agreement of the ruling and opposition parties, the standard of sales subject to payment was expanded from '3 billion won or less' to '5 billion won or less', which was originally proposed by the government, and the target of support increased from 3.7 million to 3.71 million.
In the case of legal loss compensation for small business owners and the self-employed, the target has been expanded from 'small businesses with sales of less than 1 billion won' to 'medium companies with sales of less than 3 billion won'.
Subsidies for workers in special forms (special high schools), freelancers, and cultural artists will be paid by 2 million won, an increase of 1 million won from the original government plan.
Special high school/freelance support is provided to 700,000 people in 20 industries including after-school instructors, insurance solicitors, and door-to-door salespeople, and cultural and artistic support is paid to approximately 30,000 people.
Corporate taxi and chartered bus drivers will also receive 3 million won, an increase of 1 million won from the original government plan.
The government has decided to invest an additional 100 billion won to issue an additional 2.5 trillion won worth of local love gift certificates, which have already been used up by more than 50%.
The financial support program for small businesses affected by COVID-19 has increased in size through discussions between the ruling and opposition parties.
The supply of new loans for small businesses increased from KRW 3 trillion to KRW 4.2 trillion, and the amount of loan support for converting non-bank high-interest loans of small businesses into low-interest loans increased from KRW 7.5 trillion to KRW 8.5 trillion. increased to
The amount invested by the Korea Asset Management Corporation (Kamco) to adjust potential bad debt debt increased by 400 billion won from the original 700 billion won.
In the supplementary budget, a total of 7.2 trillion won in quarantine reinforcement budget is also included.
From the previous 6.1 trillion won, quarantine treatment costs, funeral costs for the deceased, and personnel expenses for dispatched medical personnel were added, resulting in an increase of 1.1 trillion won.
The opposition and opposition parties decided to continue discussions on the issue of retroactive application of loss compensation for small businesses and income reversal, which were the biggest issues in negotiations on the supplementary budget until the last minute.
The supplementary budget was raised through excess tax revenue of 53.3 trillion won, spending restructuring of 6.8 trillion won, and surplus funds without issuance of deficit government bonds as originally planned by the government and the ruling party.
Initially, the government was going to repay 9 trillion won of government bonds out of the excess tax revenue, but as spending increased in the process of negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, the amount of government bonds repayment decreased to 7.5 trillion won.
The government decided to hold an ad hoc cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Han Deok-soo at the government complex in Seoul tomorrow (30th) at 8 am to deliberate and decide on the supplementary budget bill.
President Yoon Seok-yeol plans to immediately approve the supplementary budget bill.
If this happens, the payment of compensation for COVID-19 losses is expected to begin as early as tomorrow afternoon.
(Photo = National Assembly Photo Reporters, Yonhap News)