Doctors and business owners agree with JCP's 4-point proposal

Small business owners and doctors around the country are showing a favorable reaction to the Japanese Communist Party's four-point proposal on measures to improve people's living conditions.

The proposal published last month by the JCP demands that the government (1) withdraw its plans to introduce measures to impose an additional three billion yen public burden of social services; (2) stop planning to increase taxes on citizens and smaller companies; (3) end the policy of urging banks to speed up the "disposal of bad loans" that would damage smaller companies; (4) eliminate anti-labor practices in the workplaces and improve social services for the unemployed.

"The JCP proposal calls for almost the same things as we do," said a member of an Aichi small business owners' group which has collected about 70,000 signatures against a corporate enterprise tax system based on sales, salary, and other factors as well as income.

In Takatsuki City in Osaka Prefecture, about 140 local retailers and business owners attended a meeting with Fudesaka Hideyo, JCP Policy Commission Chair, to discuss ways to restore the Japanese economy. A participant said, "The economy is slowing down and people aren't motivated to buy. That's what we have to work on."

A doctor from Kurume City in Fukuoka Prefecture agrees with the JCP call for the cancellation of a tax increase plan, saying, "Patients are the primary victim of the adverse revision of the medical insurance system." (end)