2004 government draft budget shows Koizumi's 'reform' to be false -- Akahata editorial, December 25The Koizumi Cabinet has finalized the government draft national budget for fiscal 2004 beginning on April 1st.
It is a budget that is based on the policy of shifting more burdens onto the people and cutting benefits for many years to come through major adverse reforms of the pension system and other social services.
In contrast, large corporations will enjoy tax cut measures, including the abolition of additional taxation on corporations choosing the consolidated taxation system; continuation of wasteful expenditure on large-scale public works projects; and maintainance of the present deficit-ridden budget framework.
Broken promises
The Koizumi Cabinet has repeatedly insisted on the concept of "No growth without reform." In drafting the FY 2004 budget, it tried to sell "fiscal reform", "pension reform", and "tripartite reform".
These have all been empty promises. Worse still, the government has shifted the burden of its misgovernment onto the people, thus making the economic and fiscal crises more serious.
In particular, the so-called "pension reform" will increase the premiums every year regardless of personal income and the level of household economy while reducing pension payments, including for those who live on small amounts of benefits. What is more, the government plans to delay increasing the state share of burden for insurance premiums to 50 percent from the present 33 percent.
The Koizumi budget is a harsher version of the typical Liberal Democratic Party budget that treats funding for social services as burdensome and seeks to balance the budget by forcing the people to pay more and reducing benefits.
The government has put emphasis on "assurances of security", but what it is doing will only increase public anxieties about the future and make people more distrustful of the pension system. That's not reform at all.
If the government is to speak of "sense of security" and "reform", the first thing the government must do is keep its promises.
The government plan to increase taxation on pensions and abolish the fixed-rate tax cuts and even increase the consumption tax rate is a double or triple betrayal of the people.
Although tax revenue continues to decline, the fund earmarked exclusively for road construction has swollen to six trillion yen. This mechanism is a hotbed for the further squandering of tax money that will automatically increase the funding for road construction. If this category of funding is released for general use, money necessary for immediate needs can be secured without having to ask the people to pay more. Now is the time to stop giving priority to using tax money for wasteful public works projects.
The prime minister has cited the privatization of the public highway corporations as a centerpiece of his "structural reform" policy. The recent agreement between the government and the governing parties on the privatization of these public corporations shows clearly that he has no intention of carrying out the reform that we call for.
It provides a system that further promotes wasteful expressway construction by introducing a system in which tax money can be used to construct less profitable highways. This involves the danger of shifting the increasing burden of huge debts onto the public.
Calling for "a shift to private sector-led management", the government pretends to reform in order to prolong the wasteful structure and concessions, thus ultimately forcing the people to pay. Enough is enough. The government must stop deceiving the public.
The same applies to the so-called "three-part revenue reform" of local finance. Under the slogan calling for "decentralization", the government is cutting back subsidies for welfare services and education and is instead forcing local governments and residents to pay the national debt.
Change of focus is necessary
The 2004 budget draft shows that the Koizumi Cabinet's so-called "reform" has been for public relations purposes and that he is digging his own grave with his big talk.
The need now is to put an end to the LDP framework of politics and redirect the use of tax money from one serving large corporations and wasteful public works projects to one for improvement of people's living conditions and social services. The Japanese Communist Party demands that the draft budget be rewritten in the interests of the people. (end)