KMT legislator Weng Hsiao-ling and the Presidential Office are locked in a dispute over cuts and freezes to the state affairs fund, and orders for Mid-Autumn Festival gift boxes from sheltered workshops have become collateral damage — bad news for disadvantaged groups.

• The Legislative Yuan recently passed a measure cutting NT$10 million from the Presidential Office's state affairs fund and freezing another NT$20 million. The budget the Presidential Office had planned to use to purchase 15,000 Mid-Autumn gift boxes from 37 sheltered workshops disappeared along with it.
• Weng Hsiao-ling said she had proposed instead reducing the fund by NT$5 million while maintaining the NT$20 million freeze, but the Presidential Office never got back to her after its internal meeting, which amounts to non-acceptance.
• The Presidential Office countered that it provided complete written materials the same day it received the enquiry, and that Weng's office director even replied "received" — there are records to verify this.
• Weng Hsiao-ling stressed that the key point is that President Lai Ching-te need only immediately promulgate the seven bills passed on third reading by the Legislative Yuan, and the NT$20 million could be unfrozen at once.

Outlook: Whether the money can be unfrozen depends on whether the Presidential Office promulgates those seven bills. The two sides look set to remain deadlocked in the near term, and the sheltered workshops' orders may not be restored in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival.