President 
Lai Ching-te sang Taiwanese songs and asked Taipei taxi drivers to back Democratic Progressive Party mayoral candidate Puma Shen at their union's Ghost Festival gala on September 6. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an arrived after Lai had left, and he and Shen shook hands when they met among the tables.
Lai said he came from a working family and that his second elder brother once drove a cab, so seeing the drivers felt like seeing his brothers and sisters, the Central News Agency reported. As president and as a taxi driver's relative, he said, he hoped every driver would set out happily each day and come home safely with good business. To do that, he said, the government had to grow the economy, because more people take taxis when the economy is good. He added that 360 Taiwanese businesses had returned from China between January and August this year. Taxis would be treated as "little yellow buses" in the transport ministry's future planning, especially for carrying elderly people under long-term care, he said.
On household costs, he listed monthly payments for children aged 0 to 6, begun under the former president, of NT$5,000 for a first child, NT$6,000 for a second and NT$7,000 for a third, free tuition at public and private senior high and vocational schools since he took office, and a NT$35,000 annual subsidy for private university students. He said that from January 1 next year every child aged 0 to 18 would receive NT$5,000 a month, and that Taiwan was the first in the world to do this. He also said economic growth this year was expected to exceed 11 percent and that, with tax revenue rising, he had decided to give every person a NT$10,000 "AI dividend" next year, which he said would make people more willing to take taxis.
Lai said the central government's work also needed a local government to look after the drivers, so they should choose someone who knew their hardships, and that this mayor was Shen. At the host's urging he sang "Rainy Night in the Port City" (港都夜雨) and then, to calls for an encore, "Rain of Longing" (相思雨), at one point handing Shen the microphone and drawing him into a duet, the Central News Agency reported. Shen also sang on stage with Su Chiao-hui, the party's candidate for New Taipei mayor.
Chiang, who reached the gala at about 7:30 pm, posed for photos with drivers and greeted them table by table after speaking, the Central News Agency reported.
Figures referenced: Lai Ching-te. — JudgeMarket.
