20111020 EDITORIAL: Farmers get only veneer of fairness

EDITORIAL: Farmers get only veneer of fairness

So much for repeated pledges of social justice.

The so-called “raise” in the monthly subsidy for elderly farmers announced by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Tuesday comes across as nothing more than blatant discrimination against the nation’s farmers.

At a press conference he presided over on Tuesday, Ma announced the Executive Yuan’s proposed raise in the farmers’ subsidy, saying it plans to increase the monthly subsidy to NT$6,316 from the current NT$6,000.

Pending legislative approval, the raise, with an “anti-rich” clause attached, would be adjusted every four years in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Ma said.

In a speech that stressed fairness and social justice, Ma appeared to pride himself on having achieved this. However, while he said that the Executive Yuan also plans to increase the subsidies for another eight groups — including the elderly, the disabled and low-income families — in accordance with the CPI, the truth is that the proposal is anything but fair and even downright insulting.

First, does the Ma administration really expect to soothe farmers with its proposed raise of NT$316 a month? That translates to less than NT$11 a day — a sum of money too small to even purchase a packet of instant noodles. Does Ma expect the farmers to feed themselves by buying 316 jin (190kg) of bananas with their NT$316?

The government is doing no more than throwing the farmers a breadcrumb, highlighting in what low regard it holds the nation’s farmers.

As Ma himself noted, the NT$316 increase reflects the 5.27 percent average increase in the CPI over the past four years. Therefore, the NT$316 is not a raise per se, but a mere readjustment on the basis of CPI fluctuations.

While Ma might stress how he has attended to the notion of fairness by implementing subsidy adjustments according to the CPI for the other eight disadvantaged groups, if the president truly cared for the disadvantaged, he would address each of their problems separately, not lump them together with one “quick fix” solution and present it, falsely, as “fairness.”

And why the anti-rich clause? When the Ma administration introduced a 3 percent pay raise for the nation’s civil servants in July — Ma included, as the head of state — there was no mention of an anti-rich clause, nor was such a clause attached to the elite group enjoying an 18 percent preferential interest rate on their savings.

And let us not forget that from January, the nation’s retired military veterans will receive an increase of NT$600 on their monthly pensions — to a total of NT$14,150 a month.

While officials from the Ma administration argue that the proposed raise for farmers is more than fair, as both civil servants and retired veterans will receive comparable raises, it is not fair that each of the raises is based on a different basic figure to begin with.

Many might conclude that the Ma government’s proposed increase of NT$316 in farmers’ monthly subsidy exposes not only a deep lack of respect and regard for the nation’s farmers, but also suggests that the government itself is guilty of accelerating the widening gap between the nation’s rich and poor.