Consumption tax hike will follow pork-barrel scheme for large corporations

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Consumption tax hike will follow pork-barrel scheme for large corporations

The Aso Cabinet on April 27 approved the FY 2009 supplementary budget plan and submitted it to the Diet.

The total amount of the additional stimulus will run up to 15.4 trillion yen, the largest-ever subsidy, which includes the use of contingency funds that has been set aside as part of the main budget.

About 2.35 trillion yen will pour into such public works projects as the construction of urban beltways, improvement of ports and harbors, and expansion of Tokyo's Haneda Airport. As monetary measures, corporations will receive a boost of about three trillion yen for their financing. Other measures, like the promotion to increase demand for ecologically-friendly cars and energy-saving home appliances, will be inserted at the request of specific industries.

Generous handouts to large corporations stand out in this supplementary budget, and an increase in the consumption tax is hiding behind it as the funding resource to pay for this pork-barrel spending scheme.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a news conference on the same day criticized this additional stimulus by stating, "The government's economic stimulus package provides generous handouts only with the view toward winning the general election and is only made possible through a higher consumption tax. It has learned nothing from the past failures in its bankrupt economic policy."

Ichida went on to say, "The government still plans to maintain corporate tax breaks, construct unneeded expressways, and purchase stocks to assist large corporations. But, resources needed to this end will all be deficit-covering government bonds and construction bonds, and it seeks to increase the consumption tax to cover the expected losses in the end. How can it possibly make the country's economy and people's livelihoods better with this scheme?"

- Akahata, April 28, 2009