Both Kan and Ozawa cannot show how to overcome present recession: JCP Ichida

Japan Press Weekly

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

Both Kan and Ozawa cannot show how to overcome present recession: JCP Ichida

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi on September 6 criticized the two party presidential candidates of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan for being unable to present ways to break through the current economic stagnation in Japan.

In their party presidential election, both Prime Minister Kan Naoto and former DPJ Secretary General Ozawa Ichiro have refused to discuss how to overcome the sense of lowered living standards many citizens feel in their living conditions as well as talk about Japan’s economic and diplomatic issues, Ichida said at a press conference in the Diet building.

Concerning the financial issues, according to Ichida, Ozawa proposes that in order to reduce state expenditures, the government should pay in one lump sum all of the subsidies it gives to local governments for different purposes, while Kan calls for the consumption tax rate to be increased.

Ichida stated that 80 percent of the current fiscal year’s state subsidies paid to local governments (21 trillion yen) is designated as budgets to be used for social welfare and education programs. He stressed that a drastic cut in the subsidies would take away the national government responsibility to provide citizens with adequate welfare and education services.

He also condemned the prime minister for continuing to call for a consumption tax hike even through the proposal was soundly rejected by the majority of voters in the House of Councilors election.

- Akahata, September 7, 2010