Minister nominee for the Ministry of Planning and Budget Lee Hye-hoon said on the 29th, "We will eliminate unnecessary expenditure and invest boldly in livelihoods and growth."
On this day, as Lee arrived for work at the confirmation hearing office, Lee shared thoughts with reporters on being nominated as Minister. Lee said, "We will make the people's taxes become investments for the future, and the Ministry of Planning and Budget will create a strategic virtuous cycle in which those investments once again enrich people's lives."
Lee said, "Right now our economy is facing a structural and complex crisis that is damaging its growth potential." Lee added, "In the short term, a perfect storm (a compound crisis) of high inflation and a strong dollar-high exchange rate is putting a heavy burden on livelihoods," and "in the mid to long term, it is a gray rhino (a risk factor that is fully predictable but easy to overlook) situation."
Meanwhile, Lee is a conservative politician who served three terms in the predecessors of the People Power Party, the Hannara Party, the Saenuri Party, and the United Future Party (UFP). Lee has also been a figure who has criticized progressive administrations' "expansionary fiscal policy." President Lee Jae-myung made a "surprise" pick. Lee graduated from Masan Jeil Girls' High School and the economics department at Seoul National University, then served as a research fellow at the Korea Development Institute (KDI). After that, ahead of the 2002 presidential election, Lee was recruited as a special policy advisor by then Hannara Party presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang.
Reporters asked that day, "What do you think about the Lee Jae-myung administration's expansionary fiscal policy?" Lee replied, "I will arrange a separate occasion," and did not answer further.