President Mejía has pegged the presentation of his RD$65,000 million budget (RD$10,000 million more than last year) to the passing of the tax bills in Congress. The Chamber of Deputies has delayed on this, and thus President Mejía announced he would start the year using the 2000 National Budget. Actually, this works in favor of the Executive Branch. The Constitution establishes that if a new budget is not passed, the government should abide by the previous year’s budget. The advantage to the Executive Branch is that any surplus can be handled at discretion.
