Jeonbuk State said on the 25th that it will pay an annual stipend of 1.2 million won to 723 surviving relatives of participants in the 1894 Donghak Peasant Revolution. None are children of the participants; 108 are grandchildren and 615 are great-grandchildren. The required budget is 868 million won a year, split between the province and its cities and counties at a ratio of three to seven. Jeongeup, a basic-level local government, had paid a monthly stipend of 100,000 won to about 90 surviving relatives of the revolution's participants since 2020, but Jeonbuk is the first metropolitan-level local government to do so.
The Donghak Peasant Revolution began 132 years ago, in 1894, in Gobu, part of present-day Jeongeup. There is considerable controversy that paying stipends out of taxpayer money to descendants three generations removed goes beyond restoring the honor of those who took part. Some have scoffed, "Are we going to pay the descendants of the militia from the Japanese invasions of 1592 too?" It also contrasts with the treatment of surviving relatives of independence patriots, including those who joined anti-Japanese militias, where in principle only low-income children and grandchildren who do not receive compensation payments are eligible for livelihood support. Jeonbuk's fiscal self-reliance ratio, moreover, is in the low 20% range, the lowest among the country's 17 metropolitan-level local governments. It is questionable whether handing out such payments is sustainable when the province cannot cover even a quarter of its own budget from its own revenue. That is why critics say local governments already buried in debt from issuing hundreds of billions of won in local bonds are mobilizing tax money for handouts aimed at winning favor.
President Lee Jae-myung met on the 26th for the first time with local governments newly elected in the June 3 elections, stressing that "balanced development is not a choice or an act of benevolence but an essential strategy for the survival and sustained growth of the Republic of Korea." The meeting presented a range of locally led growth strategies, including three mega projects and regional growth engines. But it is doubtful whether results can be achieved when local finances are in such poor shape. Once public finances collapse, they are hard to rebuild. Gyeonggi Province, with a fiscal self-reliance ratio of 54.4%, declared a fiscal emergency after drawing down more than 550 billion won in reserve funds — a warning that cannot be dismissed as someone else's problem. Local governments are calling for national taxes to be transferred to local taxes and for higher local allocation taxes to break out of chronic fiscal strain. But fiscal decentralization must come with fiscal responsibility. If local governments want genuine self-government and the fruits of locally led growth, they must first operate on their bloated budgets.
