Reformulate budget to drastically change policies

Japan Press Weekly

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Reformulate budget to drastically change policies
Akahata editorial

A FY2010 government draft budget was passed on March 2 through the House of Representatives plenary session as prearranged by the Democratic Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Komei Party.

The passage of the draft budget took place shortly after a public hearing at the House Budget Committee, so there was little discussion of it.

Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio is still suspected of tax evasion for improper handling of his political funds. Money scandals involving DPJ Secretary General Ozawa Ichiro also remain unsolved. Summoning of both sworn and unsworn witnesses has not been realized in the Diet yet.

Respond to public demands

This is the first budget compilation after the LDP and its partner Komei stepped down as ruling party coalition due to their defeat in the general election. The DPJ government should have compiled the budget to address public demands so that people could actually see a change in politics.

The government draft budget partially incorporates some positive steps reflecting public demands. However, it does not embark on a significant policy shift from that of the previous government.

In the field of social security, the DPJ government postponed abolishing the discriminatory healthcare insurance program for the elderly aged 75 and older. It also broke its election promise to ease burdens on the elderly for payments of insurance premiums. Therefore, in many prefectures, elderly people are forced to pay even heavier premiums than before. In regard to the law for “self-support” of the handicapped, the DPJ government did not abolish the unpopular “beneficiary-pays principle” of the law.

As for the ongoing attempt to revise the Worker Dispatch Law, it intends to leave a big loophole in a revised law. In effect, it will still allow manufacturers to use temporary workers in assembly line work and will not prohibit the use of on-call workers. Furthermore, new restrictions on the use of temporary workers will not come into effect for three to five years. It, in other words, has given in to the resistance from business circles against the restrictions.

In its budget plan the government has increased military expenditures from last year and maintains tax breaks for corporate research and development programs as well as for stock dividends.

The government is not touching the “two sanctuaries” of military expenditures and generous tax breaks for large corporations and the wealthy. In addition to the enormous amount of debts created by successive Liberal Democratic Party governments, the “two sanctuaries” put further strain on fiscal resources. The Hatoyama Cabinet is sticking to the “two sanctuaries” by calling for an increase in the people’s tax burdens, including an increase in the consumption tax rate.

A consumption tax increase will have an impact even on households receiving welfare assistance as well as those living on 40,000 to 50,000 yen in monthly pension benefits. Business circles and the government claim that the consumption tax rate will be raised after recovery from the recession. However, the vast amount of military expenditures and tax cuts for major companies and the wealthy must be ended in order to secure budgets for the people’s livelihoods.

By drastically revising the budget plan, which is the foundation of economic policy, the government will be able to take measures to realize the public demand for a change in politics.

Three urgent changes

According to the government’s own research published on March 2, the serious employment crisis continues and the disposable income of working households has declined for eight consecutive months.

It is urgently necessary to carry out the three changes proposed by the Japanese Communist Party: recover from the damage caused by the former government’s cut in budget growth for social services; return the society a portion of large corporations’ internal reserves in order to protect employment and medium- and small-sized companies; and cut into the “two sanctuaries.”

- Akahata, March 3, 2010