Protests by angry young Americans [The Korea Times] 11-08-2011

On Sept. 17, 700 highly-educated but unemployed young people gathered at Liberty Square, at the center of Wall Street in New York City. They proclaimed that they were going to occupy Wall Street, where big banks and investment firms enjoy their bonus parties with the taxpayer money, and to continue their occupation until the unemployment problem is solved.

This protest, which did not draw too much attention at first, has become major news all around the world, as the movement spread over every major city throughout the U.S. Especially as the movement has been joined not only by young people with higher education but also by labor unions, the “Occupy Wall Street” protest can no longer be regarded as an impulsive, temporary event.

This brings back memories of the anti-Vietnam War protests in the 1960s, which helped lead to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. Of course, the nature of the protest in Wall Street is different from the antiwar protests during the Vietnam War, as it contains the message that the greed of the bankers in Wall Street made the poor people lose their jobs and suffer.

It is a fight against the absurd unfairness in what happened after the financial crisis _ to stop the financial meltdown, Wall Street was saved by the government bailing them out with taxpayer money, but the bankers and financiers of Wall Street, the real culprits of the financial crisis, remained unpunished and were even rewarded with bonuses. The protesters’ claim is that the top 1 percent receives every benefit, while the remaining 99 percent of good people are alienated and deceived.

Meanwhile, President Obama’s popularity has fallen lower, and even his reelection has become uncertain. The popularity of Congress has also fallen greatly. If this continues, a third candidate (like Ahn Cheol-soo in Korea) might suddenly jump out in the U.S., too. The 250 year-old two-party system has begun to crack.

The Obama administration put forward a job creation proposal, the so-called jobs stimulus package, in a hurry. This plan purports to involve increased taxation on the higher tax brackets. However, there was a dispute over the surtax on the rich and its criterion. The Democratic Party proposed a tax on those making over $250,000 in annual income, while the Republicans want to set the line at those making over $1 million in annual income.

It was decided at over $250,000, and those whose annual incomes are more than $250,000 would pay an additional 5.6 percent surtax. During this process, the far-right tea party members of congress opposed any kind of tax increase, claiming that taxing the rich was nothing but class warfare.

Meanwhile, the number of participants in the Occupy Wall Street protest has been increasing continuously, and its effect has even reached Korea. A recent poll showed that over three-quarters of Americans welcome taxing the rich, and that they also support the protest. The protesters even have come to Congress and continue to hold rallies there, after the report that the Republican-dominated House is not likely to pass the bill that will increase taxes on the rich.

Certainly, these angry young people have a point. They claim that their American dream was lost because of the greed of the rich people in Wall Street. And in Korea, according to news reports, while people are suffering under the 900 trillion won household debt, the financial sector is having a party by making the biggest net profit in history, while savings banks have tried to make illegal dealings using public fund to enjoy profits among themselves, which only generated debts worth several trillion won.

However, these savings banks just put all their debts on the back of the poor people, who are squeezed by household debts, as if they did nothing wrong. Silence from political establishments toward these upper classes makes one suspect that they are quiet because they are receiving enormous political funds from these richer bankers.

It deserves consideration for Korea, just like Obama, to adopt a plan to put an additional tax on annual income above 250 million won and, with the revenue, increase the employment of young people. Also, as the budget deficit of the nation is increasing rapidly, welfare programs and spending should be reduced at first, and taxes on the rich should be increased. Korea should study Obama’s job creation plan that tries to reduce deficits and create jobs by increasing tax on the rich.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the KimChangJoon US-Korea Foundation. For more information, visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com). The views expressed in the above article are the author’s own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.

Thoughts from travel around Baltic Sea [The Korea Times] 10-25-2011

I recently visited seven countries around the Baltic Sea over 13 days. This trip is an annual event of the United States Association of Former Members of Congress. I traveled on a big cruise ship, the Holland America Line, which consists of three lower-decks and nine upper-decks. They say that it can hold 2,000 passengers, and I have never seen such a big ship in my life.

On Sept. 7, I arrived in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, whose population is 770,000. The population of the Netherlands is 13 million, and its per capita gross national income (GNI) is $36,000, which is much higher than Korea’s $20,000. I felt close to this country, perhaps because it is the native land of Guus Hiddink, manager of the Korean national soccer team that reached the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup.

I boarded the ship there and headed to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. The population of Denmark is 5.6 million, and the population of Copenhagen is 540,000. Denmark’s per capita GNI is $53,000, which is a little higher than Germany’s. Its government provides many services free through its welfare system. One-third of the workforce of Denmark is employed by the government, and the residents pay the highest tax in the world, but they don’t seem mind.

The next day, I visited Warnemunde, a port city in Germany. It takes two and a half hours by car to get to Berlin from there. The population of Germany is 83 million, and 3.4 million live in Berlin. Per capita GNI of Germany is $41,000, and it is known as the most affluent and influential country in Europe. As Germany continues to pour money into Greece, its citizens have begun to talk about a breakaway from the EU.

The Germans took part in a terrible history; they killed 6 million Jews, as well as homosexuals and the mentally challenged, during the Holocaust. The Berlin Wall was erected to divide the East and the West portions of Germany in 1961. As the number of people who defected to West Germany increased, East Germany finally gave up; in 1989, the wall was taken down and Germany was unified. Germany has a close relationship with the U.S. After a census report that about one-fourth of Americans have direct or indirect German ancestors, Oct. 6 was proclaimed as an annual German-American Day.

On my way to Berlin, the car that I was in was running at 200 kilometers per hour on the Autobahn (a highway with no speed limit). I was scared, as even at that fast speed there were many cars that passed us. I was surprised to learn that the accident rates are very low.

As I was looking at the beautiful German Parliament building with its glass doors, renovated after their unification, my heart hurt from a sudden thought about my deceased mother. She was from Gangye, North Korea, and she wished that she could have visited Pyongyang as a city of unified Korea before her death.

On Sept. 12, I arrived in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn. Estonia became independent from Russia on Sept. 6, 1991. Maybe that is the reason why it still does not seem settled. Its population is just 1.3 million, and 400,000 people live in Tallinn.

It is a poor country in European standard whose per capita GNI is just $13,000, much lower than Korea. I was surprised to hear that the average male life expectancy is 69 years, just four years more the retirement age of 65. Retired at 65 and died at 69. It is believed that perhaps too much vodka causes that short lifespan.

The next day, we went to St. Petersburg, a famous city in Russia. During the time of the Soviet Union, it was called Leningrad. According to the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg, over 100,000 American tourists visit there every year. There were warning posters about pickpockets all over the city. Hearing that they often work as teams of three and how fast they are, I checked my pockets again. This city is a famous tourist site in the world. It is called the Venice of the North, as there are small canals everywhere and over 300 bridges crossing over them. With its grand palace, cathedrals, and museums, it is as beautiful as they say.

The population of Sweden is about 9 million, and about 810,000, 10 percent of the population, live in Stockholm. I could not find any beggars or homeless people in the street, maybe because Sweden is a rich country, with per capita GNI standing at $39,000. Sweden was once a powerful country that had Norway as its subordinate country. However, it is a neutral country now. It has strong agriculture and foresting industries, and is a rich country whose annual economic growth rate is expected to exceed 8 percent from 2018 on.

Stockholm is the capital of the famous Nobel Prize, and the city itself looked like a living embodiment of that prize. Sweden has close ties with the U.S. Over 1,100 American companies do business here, and they employ 120,000 Swedes. There are also 14 million people in America who have Swedish heritages.

Hyundai and Kia cars can be easily found in the streets of Stockholm. When I went to a Korean restaurant in the central district of the city, I was very surprised to see customers filling not only the inside tables, but also the tables outside on the sidewalk, during lunchtime. We felt rather out of place, since we were the only Asian customers. I did not know that Swedes liked Korean food that much.

During my travels, I was once again envious of the countries that make money from tourism. They fixed up the palaces and cathedrals their ancestors built 700 years ago to get such high admission fees from tourists, and make a fortune without spending too much for operation and maintenance costs.

Koreans don’t seem to have that many cultural assets built 700 years ago from which they can make money. However, we were really happy to see the Korean cars on the lands of these far-away foreign countries, and still happier to see the big Korean restaurant filled with Swedes.

Even though Koreans lost the brilliant cultural palaces that their ancestors carefully built thanks to so many wars, Korea still have the future. U.S also doesn’t have any old cathedrals to attract tourists, but U.S. attracts the most tourists from all over the world. It is because Koreans and Americans are helping shape the future, while others are dependent on and attached to the past to make money. Once I thought about this, I wasn’t so envious anymore.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the KimChangJoon US-Korea Foundation. For more information, visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com).

Disgust against political establishment [The Korea Times] 10-03-2011

By Jay Kim

The Ahn Cheol-soo sensation that broke out before the mayoral by-election in Seoul made the Korean political establishment think about a lot of things. The approval rating for Professor Ahn, over 50 percent in a poll, surprised the nation.

When he announced that he was not going to run for mayor of Seoul and expressed his support for Park Won-soon, a civil activist whose popularity was much lower than his, he surprised the nation once again. This sudden rise of Professor Ahn clearly shows how disappointed the people are with their current politicians, and how eagerly they want a new, fresh face.

The current state of our political reality is enough to make anyone frustrated and disappointed. For example, the free-lunch referendum that brought the resignation of Mayor Oh Se-hoon ended up just wasting a tremendous amount of taxpayers’ money (estimated at 31 billion won) on a political fight between the ruling party and its opposition, as the referendum turned into a vote of confidence in Mayor Oh.

The case of Kwak No-hyun, the education superintendent of Seoul, was another blot on the nation’s political system. He claimed that he gave 200 million won out of good will to his opponent in the superintendent election, Seoul University of Education Professor Park Myoung-gee, because the law he has learned and taught is warm and just. This logic is strange indeed.

The deepening distrust and disgust against current politicians is the essential cause of the Ahn Cheol-soo sensation. Now people no longer regard conservatives and the liberals as political groups divided by their ideological differences on the issues that arise from the pursuit of people’s happiness. Instead, people think of them as political groups that only care about their own interests and the expansion of their political power.

In this current situation, Professor Ahn’s announcement not to run for mayor of Seoul seems to suggest that he has the presidential ambitions for next year in mind. However, I am pessimistic about whether he can maintain his amazing current popularity for a year and remain as the people’s candidate until the presidential election. Until now, Ahn is a fresh face untainted by politics, only recognizable from events like the “Youth Concert.”

However, the way people look at him can change completely once he runs for president. People will start making attacks on him, and you need to wait and see how long the Ahn sensation will continue after those hypocrites who are willing to walk over so many dead bodies just to get votes go after him. I’ve also already seen editorials that expressed disappointment over those who entered into politics just because they got recognition in the polls.

This reminds me of Ross Perot, who was once a promising newcomer, like Professor Ahn, that brought a breath of fresh air into the American politics. Perot, whose fortune is worth $3.4 billion in 2011, is one of the 100 richest people in the U.S. He ran for president on his image and ability as a successful businessman in 1992. It was a time when people’s disappointment and disgust against political establishment was highly elevated.

The sudden entrance to the race by Perot, who criticized the political establishment as a group of incompetent people who only sought to further their own personal interests instead of the better future of the country, made him a hero overnight. He emphasized that he was moderate, hired Ed Rollins, a Republican, and Hamilton Jordan, a Democrat as his campaign managers, and shouted out “United We Stand America” during his speeches.

He supported traditional liberal positions such as anti-abortion rights and anti-gun control, as well as conservative positions such as closing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). His support once reached over 39 percent. At the time, 31 percent supported Bush and 25 percent supported Clinton.

However, Perot’s stubborn personality trait, typical of all other successful CEOs, of not listening to others, was revealed to be a problem. Finally, Republican Rollins resigned due to Perot’s stubbornness, and Democrat Jordan also resigned as a campaign adviser. His popularity went down to 25 percent. But the real downfall of Perot came during the first presidential debate. The rating of the debate was very high, because people wondered what kind of person Perot was.

During this debate, Perot gave a poor argument against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At the time, 57 percent of Americans supported NAFTA. After his poor performance against the experienced Bush and the handsome, polished young Clinton, his popularity nosedived from 39 percent to 7.9 percent.

There was such a big difference between Perot as a successful businessman and Perot as a presidential candidate, a potential leader of the U.S. His 1992 dream to become president failed when he received 18.9 percent (19,741,000) of the vote. Perot ran for president as the candidate of the Reform Party in 1996, but he lost again, failing even to join the presidential debates.

People long for a fresh face in Korea, having long since tired of endless political fights between the ruling and opposition parties. However, I wonder how Professor Ahn will look to the people when he becomes a presidential candidate. Furthermore, if he runs as an independent, he will look less promising. It is hopeless for him to get a nomination from the governing Grand National Party.

If he gets a nomination from the main opposition Democratic Party, or becomes a single candidate of the broader opposition camp, he would have a chance in the race. However, it does not look so easy for him to get that nomination, due to the vested interests of other politicians.

It is dangerous to run for president without any political experience. The president of Korea is not such an easy position to hold. One can never exclude the possibility that Professor Ahn’s popularity will turn into a mirage overnight as Perot’s did.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the Washington Korean-American Forum. For more information, visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com).

Failure in free-lunch referendum [The Korea Times] 09-19-2011

By Jay Kim

Watching the referendum on the free lunch program held in Seoul last month was like watching an episode of a detective program. In the United States a referendum is usually initiated by citizens reacting against incapable politicians, and almost never by the mayor, the head of a city government.

A referendum, which relies on the opinions of the people, is always a politician’s last resort, since it is regarded as a sign of weakness in his leadership. That means that a referendum is hardly ever put into motion, unless a politician is certain that it will pass overwhelmingly after conducting several polls, public hearings, and solicitations of opinions of civic organizations and experts.

I heard that Mayor Oh Se-hoon is very popular among housewives in Gangnam, southern Seoul, for his young age and good looks. This may have made him arrogant, or maybe the attacks of the majority Democratic Party members of the city council and the superintendent of education made him lose patience; however, his referendum was too rash and handled too hastily. Oh was nominated by the ruling Grand National Party and elected as mayor with its help.

Instead of making a decision on his own, it would’ve been wiser if he had discussed the idea with the GNP and let the party lead the referendum effort. By the time he reached out to the party for help, it was already too late. He announced that he would not enter the next presidential race to change the mind of Park Geun-hye, a member of the GNP and the party’s most prominent presidential hopeful, but this was also in vain.

Finally, in desperation, he announced that he would resign if the referendum failed with tears in his eyes, but even this was unsuccessful in the end. The free-lunch referendum actually became a vote of confidence in Oh.

I find this to be strange. Also strange is the law that referendum votes are not even counted unless at least one third of those eligible cast votes. I believe that these votes, which cost 31 billion won in taxpayers’ money, should be counted so that the result may be known to the citizens.

Only then would people know whether Oh actually won in terms of the votes counted. It is a real pity to throw away these votes after spending such a huge sum. In the U.S., ballot boxes must be opened regardless of the voter turnout.

The opposition’s slogan, urging people not to participate in the referendum, is something I have never heard in the United States. In America, we spend millions of dollars to raise voter turnout and teach from elementary school onward that voting is both the right and duty of citizenship.

Telling people not to vote would cause a big stir in the United States. Not casting a vote is giving up the right to vote, and it’s an expression of the individual to follow the result unconditionally, no matter what the result may be. Regardless of the voter turnout, a voting result is legal in the United States.

Abstaining from voting is regarded as irrelevant. It is not right to nullify the referendum by counting those that do not show up. The condition of a required quorum is perhaps applicable to a board meeting, but not to a citizen referendum. Whether the turnout was one-third or one-fourth of the population, the ballot boxes should have been opened and counted.

I also wonder why Oh’s camp did not change the content of the referendum to make nonvoting a victory for him, since they would have been well aware of the required quorum. If they changed the wording and told people not to show up to vote if they oppose the full-scale free lunch program, then Oh might have won.

At any rate, watching this unfold was as exciting as an episode of “I Am a Singer,” the most popular TV program in Korea these days. I was reminded of a referendum initiated by the people of California in 1978, the famous “Proposition 13.” This bill proposed to roll property taxes back to 1975 levels and limit their annual increase to no more than 2 percent.

The result of this referendum, which was a reaction against the incompetent state assembly and governor, was overwhelming support for the bill (64.8 percent of the vote). There was no condition that a voting rate below one-third of the eligible voters nullified the referendum. What was important was how many people voted for it, rather than how many people did not.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the Washington Korean-American Forum. For more information, visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com).

Ideological conflict [The Korea Times] 09-05-2011

By Jay Kim

America’s two-party political system is the most successful of its kind in the world. The two parties are the conservative Republicans and the liberal Democrats. For the past 200 years, several rival political parties have been founded and collapsed. A communist party existed in the U.S. for many years, however it eventually collapsed around the same time the Communist Party collapsed in Russia.

For over 235 years, both Republicans and Democrats have kept the two-party system going based on their clear ideological divides. Despite these ideological issues there is one issue on which they agree ― national security.

Even the now-unpopular Iraq War was almost unanimously agreed upon at the start. In contrast, the party in power in Korea, the conservative Grand National Party (GNP), and its opposition, the liberal Democratic Party (DP), fight on every issue. Each party opposes its counterpart, no matter the issue. Even on the issue of North Korea policy, which is related to national security, their opinions are almost polar opposites.

The big difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the U.S. lies in their domestic policies. They both agree that the gap of wealth between the rich and the poor should be reduced to maintain a healthy democratic system. The big difference is in their methods to achieve this goal.

The Democratic Party claims that the rich will become richer and the poor will get poorer if the government allows the wealth gap to persist. It also claims that riots are caused by this wealth gap and that to avoid conflict, the government should increase spending on welfare programs to help the poor classes, even if it increases the deficit.

It believes that a social welfare system is absolutely necessary, that it is the minimum cost to be paid to prevent riots, and that it is the duty of government to eliminate poverty, even by raising taxes only for the rich. Both Democratic Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter advocated the “Great Society,” where the government played a role in helping to cure society’s ills.

Naturally, the Democratic Party became the party of people with liberal leanings that represented the low-income classes, ethnic minorities and unions. These groups often want a strong government, since they believe that poverty cannot be eliminated without the involvement of the government.

The original Republican Party was known as the “Party of Lincoln,” the man who abolished slavery in the U.S. Naturally, the overwhelming majority of blacks supported the Republican Party at its inception. However, they gradually began to feel antipathy toward the policies of the Republican Party, and now almost 90 percent of them support the Democratic Party.

Republican President Ronald Reagan said that bringing down the rich to help the poor would make both of them poor. He claimed that too much government support and aid would make people lose their desire to work, and that the U.S. would risk becoming a “Lazy Society.” Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, both of whom are conservative, advocated neoliberalism.

They reduced spending on both social welfare and income taxes under the banner of neoliberalism. The theory is that the increase in consumer spending caused by the reduced income tax rates would cause an increase in jobs created by corporations, which would result in an increase in the amount of income taxes that would strengthen the finance of the country.

In Korea’s case, we should decide which would resolve the economic polarization and allow us to move on from the situation where the country has been stuck for 13 years at the level of $20,000 GNI per capita. The choice between the “Great Society” advocated by Johnson and Carter and the “neoliberalism” advocated by Reagan and Thatcher is up to us.

The continuous ideological conflict between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party shown during the process of negotiation on the debt ceiling led to the loss of international trust in the U.S. and forced the country into a crisis that involved the downgrading of its credit. The public criticized the leadership of President Barack Obama in this process, and the prospects of his re-election suddenly look murky.

However, each party in Korea seems to compete against the other to show that it is more liberal than its counterpart. Conservatism has disappeared, and it seems that they run around without any direction, throwing away the principles of the party just to get votes. This should not happen. It especially makes me sad to see the so-called conservative GNP putting forward free government aid programs first.

Instead of trying to cut the budget proposed by the DP for welfare programs, which is almost 20 trillion won (13 trillion won for education, medicine, and care programs; 5.7 trillion won for the half-priced college tuition program), by digging into it item by item, the GNP went further to propose a half-priced tuition program, compensation for losses caused by the failure of savings banks, and even a free childcare program.

It is deplorable to see that the GNP and the DP compete against each other to try and win the heart of the nation with free-aid policies. I heard that the total cost would be 30 trillion won. I am worried how they will afford this and if it might exhaust the state coffers. I think that taxpayers are uneasy and afraid, wondering what kind of free-aid policy will come next for the coming months before the general election set for April.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the Washington Korean-American Forum. For more information, visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com).

Who pays it, and who gets the benefit? [The Korea Times]

By Jay Kim

Americans often use the expression “who pays, who benefits” for cases where someone gets the benefit of money that somebody else paid, even though the payer should receive a benefit proportional to what they paid.

For example, the free lunch program is not free to payers, since they were forced to pay for the program with their hard-earned money. Why should they pay for it?

There is no one that dislikes anything free. People say that even the rich like free things more. Why should a couple without a child pay for the free lunch of other people’s children?

Even though I pay for the program, doesn’t it seem like the direct benefit actually goes to the politicians who take the credit for the program and get more votes in the next election?

It seems to me like those politicians are the real beneficiaries. The program should be paid with the money from reducing the salaries of those politicians who benefit.

The lunch I make for my child comes from my love of that child, no matter how meager it may be. This type of basic personal freedom and choice should be regarded as something precious.

If I give the government the money for my children’s lunch program, the government will spend half that money as “operational costs” and hire more government employees, which could lead to corruption like bribing government officials with the money from feeding children food that has passed its expiration date.

The U.S. also has a free lunch program called the National School Lunch Program. This program is run by local governments and school districts with money from the federal government, and costs about $10 billion per year.

Only the children of families under the poverty level (as defined by the federal government as families of three whose annual income is below $20,000) are eligible for this program.

Even the U.S., whose GDP is nearly three times higher than Korea’s, does not provide free lunch for every student. Only a country like North Korea coerces children into having the same lunch menu; countries like these have lines for food with empty bowls.

There is still a constant wave of immigrants coming to the U.S. from all over the world, seeking the American dream.

They are not coming to the U.S. because it offers things like free lunches for their children, but because they can make a better life for themselves with all the opportunities available to those who work hard. Americans always reward hard work.

The real American dream is to be able to buy a house, have a car, and gain a good education, not to have a free lunch program. Immigrants don’t come for a handout, but for an equal opportunity to succeed.

If Korea was known to third world countries as the home of free programs for child care, medicine, tuition for colleges, or housing, then many poor immigrants from these poorer countries would probably come to Korea.

This is not the Korean dream. This is simply politicians risking the collapse of the national economy just for getting more votes in the next election with other people’s money.

We should think about why the foreign press points out that Korea’s politics, in contrast with its cutting-edge economy, is still in the third world.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. Congressman. He serves as chairman of the Washington Korean-American Forum. For more information visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com). The views expressed in the above article are the author’s own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.

Chosun Ilbo 1/13

http://www.chosunilbousa.com/ninfo.cfm?upccode=ch7FB65D4C-E&cat=News

Jay Kim gave a welcome speech at a Korean American meeting held by Korea Economic Institute in celebration of ‘Korean American Day’ on January 12. The participants of the event, including a former Korean Minister of Health and Welfare, 9 members of National Assembly, and the Korean Consul General, discussed the Korea-U.S. FTA and overseas Korean voting which will start from 2012.

Hankook Ilbo 1/11

http://news.hankooki.com/ArticleView/ArticleView.php?url=people/201101/h2011011123452091560.htm&ver=v002

‘The first conference of Korean American politicians and next generation leadership forum’ will be held on March 24 for three days. Jay Kim is invited to this conference where current and former Korean American politicians and government officials, and Korean politicians will attend. During the event, they will discuss the ways to increase the political power of Korean American community, to bring along the next generation of Korean American leaders, and to cultivate the rights of overseas Koreans.

 

Physical confrontation in Assembly [The Korea Times]

By Jay Kim

They say that politics in Korea, no matter how advanced the rest of the culture has gotten, is still on a third world level.

In the most recent scuffle among the lawmakers of ruling and opposition parties at the National Assembly, office appliances were hurled around, their aides got involved in the fighting, the thick fortified-glass door of the main hall was shattered during the fight, and a legislator was even sent to the hospital with his head bleeding from having been hit with a thrown gavel.

It’s a pity that this happened in the lawmaking center of a major economic power. Had this happened in the United States, participating aides would have been sent to jail, and Congressmen involved in the fight would have been brought to the disciplinary committee, which could lead to them losing their posts.

The biggest difference between the U.S. and Korean parliamentary systems is how the Congress is run by the majority and minority parties.

In Korea, the President’s party is the “majority,” and the other parties, regardless of how many seats they have in the Assembly, are “minority” parties.

In America, the majority party is the one with the largest number of seats in Congress; the affiliation of the President has nothing to do with it.

President Barack Obama is a Democrat, but the Republicans have the majority of seats in the House of Representatives, so they are the majority party and are the party that seats the chairperson of every committee and subcommittee in the House.

Unlike Korea, there is no sharing of the chairmanship with the minority parties; if the Democrats don’t like it, they’ll just have to regain the majority in the next election.

If President Obama was a Republican, every bill would pass through Congress with ease; since that’s not the case, there will be friction between the White House and Congress, most likely regarding the budget for next year.

There have been precious few cases where the budget was passed within its deadline. The fiscal year for the U.S. budget starts on Oct. 1 of one year and ends on Sept. 30 of the next year.

If the budget has not been passed by then, a “continuing resolution” will be adopted, allowing the government to temporarily run on the previous year’s budget.

In 1995, Democrat Bill Clinton was President and the Republicans were the majority party of Congress. At that time I had just been re-elected as a Republican Congressman, and the Republican House members, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, stopped the budget bill submitted by Clinton, claiming that budgets for Medicare, the Environmental Protection Agency, and various welfare programs should be cut deeper.

Clinton claimed that they’d been cut as much as possible; Gingrich responded that the House could not increase the debt limit.

This led to the infamous government shutdown of that year, when non-essential government services were closed after midnight on Nov. 13 (the deadline of the continuing resolution), and only services such as police departments and national defense continued to run.

Clinton strongly criticized the Republicans for the shutdown, as nearly $800 million was lost in the 20-odd days that the government was shut down.

At the start of 1996, the budget bill passed thanks to mediation from then-Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. Surprisingly, public opinion was on Clinton’s side over the debate, and this helped lead to his re-election that year.

I would hope that Korean parliamentary members should remember the U.S. government shutdown of 1995, when the nation turned its back on Congress in the battle between them and President Clinton over the budget.

I believe that the budget bill, the blueprint for how the nation will run, should not be connected to political contentions; rather, as it relates to the daily lives of Korean citizens, it should be passed as soon as possible.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. Congressman. He serves as chairman of the Washington Korean-American Forum. For more information, visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com).

How to deal with the North’s provocations

Just like the tragic sinking of the Cheonan that claimed 46 Korean sailors’ lives, North Korea seems to be under the delusion that they can get away with their latest blatant and inhuman provocation.

This time, it was an artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, which not only killed Korean soldiers, but killed civilians and destroyed their homes as well.

North Korea, once again, claimed that South Korea initiated the attack, a major miscalculation on their part because nobody believes their claims. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

North Korea does not seem to realize that even their longtime ally China has grown weary of the criticism from the international community regarding North Korea’s repeated provocations. There have been unofficial discussions among some members of the Chinese Communist Party over whether it is worth continually defending North Korea.

This seems like a golden opportunity to create a chasm between those two countries. Not a single other country would take North Korea’s side; even Taiwan and Russia have condemned them, and Israel made a strong statement that “the crazy regime of North Korea should be brought down.”

Although China stopped just short of their own condemnation of North Korea, they stated that they are seriously concerned about the current tragic situation. The international community seems to support South Korea’s military actions as an act of self-defense allowed by international law, making North Korea look even worse.

As the chair of the G20 Seoul Summit, South Korea has shown that they can be leaders on a global stage, giving them credence amongst other major nations. The South should not allow this golden opportunity to raise its stature slip away.

However, there do not seem to be any satisfactory forms of retaliation. South Korea should avoid the outdated and passive types of sanctions, like reuniting separated families or stopping the Gaeseong Industrial Complex. But what would be the crucial blow?

The first action should be for South Korea to file an official resolution to the U.N. Security Council condemning North Korea and requesting immediate retaliation. It seems obvious that their indiscriminate murder of civilians is a clear violation of the U.N. charter and the armistice treaty.

This is exactly the kind of job that the Security Council was created for. This is the time for the council, criticized for their ineffectiveness, to show their leadership to the world.

After pressing the Security Council, South Korea (with the support of the U.S.) should take all-out sanctions against North Korea. This means that the entire world should cut off diplomacy or trades with North Korea. This would put China in a very uncomfortable position, in which they would potentially be the only country defending North Korea for their repeated provocations.

With a total lack of international support, it would be extremely difficult for China to invoke their veto power in the Security Council to keep defending their erstwhile ally.

Finally, a joint South Korea-U.S. resolution should be proposed to allow the U.N. to send their peacekeeping forces immediately to the Korean Peninsula to retaliate against any future North Korean provocations. If the U.N. will not keep the peace, then for what has it been created?

The main obstacle to getting these resolutions passed is the “veto” power given to five nations ― the U.S., France, England, Russia, and China.

The solution to this would be to reform the U.N. Security Council, eliminating that veto power and having every case brought before the council decided by a majority vote, or at least give the other nations the power to override a veto with a supermajority.

I believe that this aging Security Council should be overhauled and replaced with G20 members. If the U.S. and South Korea jointly initiate this reform, I believe the U.K. and France will come along.

This would give South Korea a position in the U.N. equal to China, as a member of the Security Council, and give them the power to prevent China from constantly vetoing actions against North Korea. The time has come to overhaul the staid, do-nothing U.N. and create something new on the international stage.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. Congressman. He serves as chairman of the Washington Korean-American Forum. For more information, visit Kim’s website (www.jayckim.com).