Ruling party lawmaker Chung Mong-joon told a joint session of leading party figures Wednesday that President-elect

Park's transition team should refrain from trying to fulfill all of Park's campaign pledges at once. Chung Mong-joon,

Lawmaker
Saenuri Party
"The presidential transition team should not be bound by Park's campaign pledges, but should first set some

priorities and then go about implementing them."To reinforce his point, Chung referred to Chicago Mayor Rahm

Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama.In his book, Emanuel said that, if President

Obama had implemented all of his campaign pledges, the U.S. would have gone bankrupt. So what is the main

source of concern?President-elect Park is determined to keep her word and push for her welfare pledges without

raising taxes.However, her pledges include cutting delinquent borrowers' debts by up to 70 percent, providing free

childcare for children up to age 5, and cutting college tuition fees in half, among others.These pledges would

require huge amounts of government funding.The ruling party's supreme council member Shim Jae-cheol has urged

Park to think of ways to water down her multi-billion dollar pledges. The party's floor leader, Lee Hahn-koo, known

as Park's mentor for economic matters, was the first to express concern.Lee said in December that Park would need

to re-think some of her pledges once she got elected, sitting down with opposition lawmakers to modify them to

reflect financial and other constraints.
{Kim Yeon-ji , Reporter , yjkim@arirang.co.kr}
"These arguments are, however, not well-received by opposition lawmakers. Some opposition lawmakers strongly

criticize the talks for not being bound by Park's campaign pledges, saying that it's irresponsible of the ruling party to

discuss how to slow down implementing the pledges or possibly making changes to them before the launch of the

new government." Representative Roh Hoe-chan of the minor opposition Progressive Justice Party is one of them.
Progressive Justice Party } "If there were problems with pledges, the ruling party and Park Geun-hye should have

modified them before making promises. They didn't do that, and they are now saying the pledges are not realistic

and they would damage fiscal health. It's like they made false promises to win the election."Meanwhile, the chairman

of Park's transition team, Kim Yong-joon, said Thursday that there won't be any changes to Park's pledges, saying

that sticking to the original pledges is the right thing to do for people.
{Kim Yeon-ji, Arirang News.}

Reporter : yjkim@arirang.co.kr