Kim Sung-whan, “The Common Middle Class All Received Explosive Heating Bills. Are European Countries Populist, Too?”

Lee Jae-myung (second from left), leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, speaks with the party’s secretary general Cho Jeong-sik and Kim Sung-whan, chair of the party’s policy committee, in an emergency meeting of the party’s local government representatives and council members to discuss the soaring heating bill at the National Assembly on January 26. Yonhap News

On January 27, Kim Sung-whan, head of policy in the Democratic Party of Korea, argued that the proposal to provide support for high energy prices was not populism and asked, “Should we call European countries populist, too?”

In an interview on Kim Jong-bae’s Focus (MBC radio) Friday, when the host mentioned how the People Power Party criticized the proposal as “give away” populism, Kim said, “Energy rates rose much more in Europe than in our country due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, and most of those European countries cut taxes or provided support for energy costs.”

The Democratic Party wants to hand out energy support funds for everyone except those in the top income quintile. Based on a four-person household, they proposed to hand out one million won to households with income levels in the bottom 30%, 600,000 won to households between 30-60%, and 400,000 won to households between 60-80%.

Kim said, “If our party was in office, we would have naturally tried to hand out support funds for high energy prices on par with the Covid relief fund.” He further argued, “Since the ordinary middle class are all suffering from explosive heating bills, shouldn’t we expand the scope of government support to include ordinary citizens as well as those in the Basic Livelihood Security program?”

Kim claimed that the people eligible for government assistance were busy paying bank interest with their salaries and said, “Utility prices rose, and so did public transportation fares. On top of that, they were hit by an explosive heating bill, so they are in a very tight situation.”

He said, “The Yoon Suk-yeol government doesn’t seem to have any intention to do so (to provide support) claiming they have to reduce the budget,” and argued that the public sentiment would eventually determine the outcome of this issue.

The Democratic Party policy chief said he welcomed the plan to double the amount in state energy vouchers and gas price discounts for the vulnerable, which the Office of the President released on Thursday, and added, “It’s not enough, but the amount was increased significantly, so I expect it to somewhat help the people who will receive the benefits.”

Kim relayed the words of Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung who suggested that the president stop blaming others and stop recklessly taking advantage of the investigative powers of the Prosecution Service and join a competition to see who can do better and said, “From that perspective, I think this was part of the competition to do better.”