JCP takes on Koizumi Cabinet and offers policy of change

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo took the floor of the House of Representatives on September 29 and took on Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro's cabinet, saying, "The task of this extraordinary session of the Diet is to discuss the pending issues fully before the public. These are issues that will be debated in the coming House of Representatives general election." He presented a JCP counterproposal on "economic reform" that would replace the governmental "structural reform" policy.

On the use of tax money, Shii called for public expenditure to be redirected by ending wasteful large development projects and increasing welfare- and environment-related projects which would help to reduce public spending while maintaining jobs. He also demanded drastic cuts in military spending.

Shii showed that the cost of social security services can be covered by a cleanup of wasteful use of tax revenues and appropriate taxation imposed on large corporations and high-income earners, not by forcing working people to pay more taxes, including the consumption tax.

Raising the issue of employment, Shii called for long working hours and unpaid-overtime work to be eliminated and new jobs increased. "To this end, the government must change its policies of encouraging unrestrained corporate restructuring, and large companies should provide young people with more stable jobs," Shii argued.

Shii urged Prime Minister Koizumi to admit his mistake of wholeheartedly supporting the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. Koizumi argued, "The attacks were in compliance with the U.N. Charter."

Pointing out that many ruling party members seek to remove the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution so as to make Japan a war-fighting nation, Shii demanded that they stop scheming to adversely revise the Constitution.

Shii, citing the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, pressed the government to cancel the dispatch of Japan's Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, repeal the SDF-Iraq law, give up on a passage of the bill to extend the special measures law on terrorism, and remove SDF warships from the Indian Ocean. (end)