 JCP publishes a proposal to revise the budget Amid Diet proceedings on the FY 2005 budget, the Japanese Communist Party on February 17 called for the budget to be drastically revised to a people-friendly one. JCP Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi, together with JCP Diet Policy Chair Koike Akira, called a news conference to explain the JCP version of the FY 2005 budget. Pointing out that reviewing wasteful public works projects and military spending as well as tax breaks for large corporations can yield about six trillion yen, Ichida proved that social welfare services can be improved with that money without forcing people to shoulder extra burdens. The JCP-proposed FY 2005 budget is: to cut down waste in public works projects, including the construction of a second runway at the Kansai International Airport and military expenditures such as the introduction of air-refueling tankers; to shift the national tax revenues now earmarked specifically for road construction to the general budget; and to levy an appropriate amount of taxes on large corporations and high-income earners based on their taxpaying capacity. With the money saved by these measures, it calls for: state contribution in the basic pension system to be increased from the present one third to one half; adverse revisions of public services in nursing and medical cares as well as welfare to be put to an end; the budget to reverse the birthrate decline to be expanded to one trillion yen; the increase in national universities' tuition to be cancelled; and budgets to be generously used for education, child-rearing assistance, disaster relief, job creation and security, and support for smaller businesses. The government led by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro is planning to force people to shoulder an extra seven trillion yen in the next two years by scaling down the fixed-rate tax cuts system and by increasing pension, nursing care and unemployment insurance premiums. By FY 2007, the Koizumi Cabinet seeks to increase the consumption tax rate to more than ten percent. (end) |