The promotion of happiness for all people is the catchphrase of President Park Geun-hye’s administration. During the run-up to the presidential election last December, she said she would spend 135 trillion won on her new projects designed to make all people happy ― many of them focusing on welfare.

Her administration, which started to flesh out her five-year spending plan upon its inauguration in February, said it would save a large sum of money by reducing spending waste to the minimum, removing many of the redundant projects and phasing out or scaling down the projects that were deemed unnecessary or not urgent.

Still, the administration said, the savings would not be large enough. It said an additional 48 trillion won would have to come from taxpayers during the next five years. In 2014 alone, it said it would have to increase tax revenues by 7.6 trillion won.

But it did not take long before budget officers found it would be easier said than done. A protracted slump made it difficult to collect more from taxpayers.

Unveiling its revision bill to the tax code on Friday, the administration virtually acknowledged it had been more optimistic about its tax revenue projections than warranted. It said the revised tax revenue increases would be a mere 450 billion won for 2014 and 2.5 trillion won for the entire five years.

Now the question is how to make up for the huge shortfalls. Options are limited. The administration may push for an increase in tax revenues no matter what, scrap Park’s campaign promises or strike a balance somewhere between the two. Of course, it may choose to borrow at the expense of the nation’s fiscal prudence.

The Korea Institute of Public Finance focuses on increasing tax revenues in its policy recommendation. It says Korea has much room for maneuvering in this regard, given that its ratio of tax revenue to gross domestic product, which stood at 19.3 percent in 2010, was much lower than the OECD average of 24.6 percent.

Welfare spending as a percentage of GDP is projected by the institute to increase sharply, from 9.2 percent in 2009 to 21.6 percent in 2050, as the population is aging rapidly. Against this backdrop, the administration acknowledges the need to collect more in the medium and long term, when it says it plans to raise the tax revenue-to-GDP ratio to 21 percent by 2017.

But the administration is evasive when it comes to the question regarding what needs to be done for the 2014 fiscal year. It says it will promote a public consensus on a tax revenue increase after putting an end to income deductions and tax credits where possible and taxing as much of the underground economy as possible.

But it does not have much time for building a public consensus as it is obligated to send its 2014 budget request to the legislature by Oct. 2. A more sensible approach would be to prioritize Park’s campaign promises and shelve those whose implementation can wait until after the economy recovers its vitality.