여야, 문 대통령 시정연설 상반된 평가… "매우 공감" vs "현실부정"
President Moon's speech raised the curtains for the parliament's annual review of next year's budget.
Rival party lawmakers were divided on the points highlighted by the South Korean leader at the national assembly today.
Kim Mok-yeon sheds light on their respective responses.
The ruling Democratic Party responded positively on Thursday to President Moon's budget speech, claiming that it laid out a hopeful future for South Korea.
The party said the speech reflected the government's willingness to actively work with the National Assembly to address and fix economic inequality.
President Moon pointed out the serious problem of economic polarization and stressed the need for income-led growth, innovative growth and equality to build a country in which everyone can prosper together. Such policies are crucial for Korea to change its economic situation and achieve sustainable growth.
The main opposition Liberty Korea Party was critical, though.
The conservative party claimed that the entire nation is suffering from the Moon administration's economic policies, especially its policy of income-led growth.
And it said the speech showed that the government still doesn't understand what caused the current economic crisis.
The Moon administration must stop experimenting on the nation with irresponsible economic policies. We expected a budget speech that would lead to overall economic growth, but today's speech self-righteously insisted on a failing policy.
The minor conservative Bareun Mirae Party also criticized the speech as disappointing one that did not lay out any specific policy or any plans for structural improvement.
The liberal Party for Democracy and Peace and the leftist Justice Party, meanwhile, agreed with Moon's speech in most aspects, but stressed the need to aggressively tackle social polarization and boost welfare spending.
With the President's speech, the National Assembly officially kicked off its review of the government's budget proposal for next year.
In August, the government proposed a budget worth 412 billion U.S. dollars that includes expenditures for job creation, social welfare and inter-Korean projects
The parliament's standing committees will now have a month to deliberate before puting the budget up for a vote in the plenary session on Nov.30th.
Kim Mok-yeon, Arirang News.
