Does the buck really stop there?

Suh Kyoung-ho
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

The sign inscribed with “The Buck Stops here!” was placed on the desk of President Yoon Suk Yeol when he made a nationally televised address from his office earlier this month. A replica of the desk plate is a gift President Yoon received from U.S. President Joe Biden when he visited Korea for a summit two years ago. The sign, which stayed on the desk of U.S. President Harry Truman throughout his term, could represent Yoon’s determination to not pass the buck — in other words, his responsibilities as the president — to anyone else. It is commendable that Yoon keeps the phrase to remind him of his presidential duty. But his words and actions often did not match.

During the first year of his presidency in 2022, the rude speech manner of the political rookie fresh out of the prosecution business came under fire. The press and the public were trying to figure out whether his intriguing comment caught on a hot mic after attending a charity fund-raising event in New York was aimed at his U.S. host Biden or the Congress or the Korean legislature. But the affair still remains a mystery because the president has never clarified it. It doesn’t fit a responsible leader.

When a public policy stirred a protest or confusion, the president stepped in and called it off. Government policies his officials painstakingly drew up went down the drain. But that didn’t result from his outstanding ability to emphasize with public opinion. Instead, that often represented his unilateral decision on critical issues.

President Yoon Suk Yeol shows the desk plaque, which he received from U.S. President Joe Biden during his visit to Seoul in May 2022, to a KBS anchor after finishing his New Year’s interview with the public broadcaster at his office on Feb. 4. [PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE]

In March last year, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced a plan to change the rigid statutory 52-hour workweek. Easing the rigidity in the work hours had been Yoon’s campaign pledge and one of his government’s agendas. But the revision was misrepresented as the conservative administration’s attempt to stretch the work hours to a maximum of 69 hours a week.

Because any fixes to the Labor Standards Act require an agreement with labor representatives, they cannot be applied to worksites if they are opposed by unions. After the president ordered his aides to find a solution, his drive to reform the labor sector by providing workers with greater choices in working conditions came to a stop.

According to a survey by the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses, what the country’s SMEs want most from the next National Assembly was flexing the draconian 52-hour workweek (38.9 percent). The government has referred the matter to the tripartite committee of the Economic, Social, and Labor Council. But it may have lost traction already. The president and the government should have taken a more discreet approach to the issue.

The policy to address potential safety hazards from direct online purchases of overseas merchandises was also reversed quickly in the face of fiery protests by customers. A press release from the Prime Minister’s Office clearly stated that foreign products without the Korea certification stamp would be banned from entering the country. But the Prime Minister’s Office said the press release was “misunderstood” as if to test the reading comprehension of Korean people. The opposition Democratic Party called the fiasco “the second international embarrassment after the hot-mic scandal,” which has become a habitual recipe for the majority opposition to ridicule the government.

The presidential office has the last say in government policies. But fine-tuning should have taken place before a policy is announced. The presidential office has displayed its impotence if a policy was announced without its knowing. If the office revoked it due to bad public opinion, it just discredits government ministries and their heads. This may not be what the president wants to see when he promised to give full authority to ministries if elected president.

When Donald Trump was asked by a reporter whether he really felt the “buck stops” with him to imply his liability for the longest federal government shutdown in January 2019 due to the legislative impasse over his demand for $5.7 billion in federal funds to build a massive wall around the borders with Mexico, Trump curtly answered, “The buck stops with everybody.”

I wonder how President Yoon would answer the question. I hope he does not answer just like Trump did.