Taiwan's opposition is offering to buy mooncake gift boxes from disability workshops after its own budget cuts killed the presidential office's order, and the ruling DPP calls the gesture too little, too late.

• Opposition lawmakers cut and froze the presidential office's discretionary fund, wiping out a planned order of 15,000 mooncake boxes from 37 sheltered workshops that employ disabled workers.
• Taichung mayor Lu Shiu-yen accused the presidential office of abandoning the order and said her city government would take it over, with other KMT mayors and lawmakers pledging to buy boxes too.
• The DPP says the buy-back is a drop in the bucket and amounts to admitting the original spending was necessary, making the cuts pointless.
• With local elections this year, candidates pledging public money or their own salaries for the boxes face limits under campaign finance rules.

Outlook: Expect the fight over the presidential office's budget to keep running as a campaign issue into the local elections, with the workshops still short of their lost orders.