RIVAL PARTIES AGREE ON 2023 BUDGET BILL

[Anchor Lead]

With only one day left until the deadline, rival parties reached an agreement on next year's budget bill. The ruling and opposition party plans to hold a general meeting this evening to pass the budget bill and related legislations.

[Pkg]

After a long struggle that dragged on for 20 days beyond the deadline the two sides at last reached an agreement on the budget bill for 2023. As for the thorniest issue of corporate tax, they agreed to lower one percentage point for each of the four tax brackets. The government and the ruling party wanted to shave three percentage points from the highest tax rate of 25% while the Democratic Party limited the rate cutback to just one percentage point, arguing against reducing taxes for the wealthy. However, the two sides finally reached a compromise. The lawmakers also agreed on the budget for the Police Bureau under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Justice Ministry's Personnel Information Management Bureau, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's so-called enforcement ordinance organizations. The opposition DP argued for a cutback of entire amount while National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo proposed to set up a reserve fund. In the final agreement, the budget for those two bureaus will be earmarked as 'regular budget' but the amount will be halved. The ruling and opposition parties self-congratulated themselves for making appropriate concessions and wrapping up the negotiations properly.

[Soundbite] Joo Ho-young(Floor Leader, People Power Party) : "Although we are a minority ruling party, we tried to set a budget that very much reflected the government's policies and philosophy."

[Soundbite] Park Hong-keun(Floor Leader, Democratic Party) : "We wanted to stop tax cuts for the super rich and increase budgets for people's livelihoods. We aimed to cut budgets for gov’t agencies."

The agreement came one day after National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo's ultimatum that set today as the budget approval deadline. The lawmakers must have felt the pressure when Speaker Kim said he would present either the government's original plan or the opposition's revised version if the parliament failed to reach an \agreement.

[Soundbite] Park Hong-keun(Floor Leader, Democratic Party) : "We reached a compromise in the belief that we shouldn't cause any more trouble for the people."

[Soundbite] Joo Ho-young(Floor Leader, People Power Party) : "We were anxious once we passed the end of the regular session on December 9. But we believed that the national budget should be executed in a predictable manner."

The ruling and opposition party plans to hold a general meeting at 6PM this evening to pass the budget bill, but they still couldn't avoid being labeled the most unpunctual parliament since the implementation of the National Assembly Advancement Act in 2014.