What Would It Cost to Expand Nat'l Assembly?

Minor opposition parties like Justice and Bareun Mirae want the number of lawmakers increased from 300 to 330 to ensure fairer representation, but that would come at a hefty cost to the taxpayer.

This year, each lawmaker takes home a salary of about W150 million (US$1=W1,167). Each has a staff of no fewer than eight secretaries and assistants who cost some W480 million a year in total.

The lawmakers also receive about W100 million in expenses for managing their office and performing their parliamentary activities, so each lawmaker costs taxpayers at least W730 million a year.

That means an increase by 30 would cost an additional W21.9 billion a year.

The opposition parties are saying this could be avoided by cutting salaries and staff, but that is unlikely to find a majority among the National Assembly's fat cats.

Also, public sentiment seems to tend the other way. A poll released last week by the think tank of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party found that 63.3 percent of respondents think even 300 lawmakers are too many.