The 2016 budget has been fixed at 386,399,700,000,000 won. We, the people, pay taxes of various titles to fill the state coffers and keep the government running. Individuals and corporations set aside large portions of their earnings to fulfill their duties as members of the republic, while universally paying the 10 percent value-added tax on all kinds of transactions, ranging from eating seolleongtang to using a cellphone. 

Divide the 389 trillion won by the total population of 50 million and the calculator produces 7,727,994 won ($7,000). This may be regarded as the value of the benefit you receive from the government spending. But when average citizens compare any reward with the material sacrifice they make, the former always looks smaller than the latter. To be taken from the per capita gross domestic product of roughly 32 million won or $28,000 (provisional figure for 2015), 7.7 million won is big money. 

Let’s take a look at the budget plan the Park Geun-hye administration presented to the National Assembly to guess what good things we can expect next year. In her address to the legislature, the president explained four major goals of the government, which were: providing more work opportunities for young people, economic innovation, the rejuvenation of the national culture and the improvement of public welfare. We, particularly the young, will have to wait and see. 

In administration offices, drafting the next year’s budget starts as early as in May, only a few months after the new fiscal year sets in. My brief (three years) experience in public service with the Korea Overseas Information Service, the government agency responsible for the promotion of Korea’s global image, offered me the opportunity to look closely into how our bureaucracy uses this tax money. 

What I learned from inside the government was the great difference between the state and private sectors in the degree to which they cherish and value the money in their control. At home, the breadwinner earns money and spends it for his family; one knows how hard it is to make the money that is used for the little community’s survival and well-being. In government, leaving any portion of the given fund unused is a sin; spend it up wholly and avoid the risk of a budget cut the next year. 

Well, senior administrators in fact sweat a little to secure the money. At the KOIS, its finance team drafts the organization’s spending plan largely on the basis of the current year’s budget, inflating it by some 15 percent or so with the addition of a number of new business projects such as opening new cultural centers in major foreign cities or holding publicity events at other places in order to make the world more aware of how economically and culturally advanced South Korea is, and how dedicated it is to the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

On my table was the list of the officials of the Planning and Budget Office (now the Ministry of Strategy and Finance) on the line of budget compilation, complete with their office and home phone numbers, hometowns and the schools they went to, which were deemed necessary for private contact with them. One July, I visited the PBO to make my rounds of the offices of junior and senior officials whose job included the KOIS budget to explain how important and indispensable each item in our plan was. In the corridors, I came across with the leaders of other government offices who were there with the same purpose as mine.

Several days later, I was informed that the KOIS budget was slashed by some 30 percent in the area of special projects. The dismayed KOIS chief made an early morning phone call to the home of the director of budget to set an appointment and then met him for the second time to renew our appeal. This much effort on behalf of my organization helped save some major projects and an overall increase of the KOIS expenditure by close to 10 percent from the previous year. The next step of lobbying with the ruling and opposition party members of the National Assembly’s Culture-Tourism-Sports Committee may be skipped here.

This was more than 10 years ago but I believe that this practice of government offices to secure their operational funds must remain the same. I recall my days in government service with mild regret, as doubts arise as to whether all those special projects at considerable cost were really so necessary as I had insisted. Were all the business trips and meetings abroad really so important as not to be substituted by wire communications? What would survive in the structure and functions of bureaucracy if all redundancies and formalities were eliminated, I often ponder.

There are areas of government work that are absolutely necessary. We can think of feeding and arming our troops on the front line and the defenders of the seas and the air, salaries for school teachers, support for the aged and the infirm, promotion of research and development, protection of the people from epidemics and natural disasters, and so on. Yet, numerous items in the thousands of pages of the budget are there for no other reason than that they have been passed on by the bureaucrats year after year. 

Our officials would conveniently produce OECD figures to show the still lower comparative weight of Koreans’ tax burdens. But a revolutionary review of government expenditures to cut unworthy spending will allow a great deal of tax money to be redirected to making the nation stronger and many people happier. Blocking corruption in arms procurement, downgrading officials’ airline seating and accommodations abroad, and ensuring there are no more constructions of highways through the constituencies of political heavyweights can make more funds available for the relief of the underprivileged. And how much more proud would we be of our president if she appears in the same suit that we had seen sometime before.

President Park’s four goals may have helped her win the 387 trillion won budget for 2016. But taxpayers know too many absurdities are hidden behind the facade to waste the average 7.7 million won they each are to contribute.

By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. — Ed.