 As JCP Fuwa warned, the economy gets worse: ex-minister In 1997, Japanese Communist Party Chair Fuwa Tetsuzo warned that the measures enacted to shift an extra burden of about 9 trillion yen onto the people would hurt the economy. Former Minister in Charge of Financial Affairs Yanagisawa Hakuo, acting chair of the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council, now says Fuwa was right. In an Asahi Newstar satellite television interview broadcast on December 1, Yanagisawa expressed his cautious view on the proposal to abolish the fixed-rate tax cuts in income and residential taxes, recalling the damage the economy experienced as a result of a consumption tax increase and the removal of special tax cuts. He said, "The first person who alerted us to the negative impact of the 9 trillion yen burden was Japanese Communist Party Chair Fuwa Tetsuzo." On January 23, 1997, at the Lower House plenary session, Fuwa called for the cancellation of the plan to shift a heavier burden onto the people because it would wrongly steer the Japanese economy. That was the moment when Yasagisawa understood the people were forced to bear such a heavy burden, he recalled. (end) |