June 11, 2020

Opposition parties, including the Japanese Communist Party, on June 10 jointly introduced to the Lower House Budget Committee a motion to recompile the second supplementary budget draft to compress the 10-trillion-yen reserves down to 1.5 trillion yen in order to divert the funding needed for measures to support SMEs, healthcare services, and people's livelihoods.

The opposition parties said that reserve funds are the money the central government can freely use without Diet approval, and that keeping in reserve of as much as 10 trillion yen, therefore, goes against financial democracy.

The opposition parties claim that the government-proposed draft of the 2nd supplementary budget is inadequate to protect small and medium-sized businesses, jobs, and people's daily lives. They incorporated in their revised-2nd supplementary budget draft an increase of 2.7 trillion yen in cash benefits to SMEs, the self-employed, and freelance workers with an additional five trillion yen to support their payments of rent. The opposition-submitted second supplementary budget includes an increase in student-related budgets by 1.2 trillion yen in order to halve college tuition fees and provide cash benefits; an increase of 160 billion yen to help low-income families with children; an increase of two trillion yen for anti-coronavirus countermeasures taken by local governments; and an increase of 500 billion yen to support medical institutions throughout the country.

At a press conference held on the same day, JCP Diet Affairs Commission Chair Kokuta Keiji said, "It is of great significance for us, opposition parties, to jointly table this motion."

Explaining the reason why the JCP is opposed to the government-proposed 2nd supplementary budget, Kokuta said, "Ten trillion yen in reserve is deviating from the fundamental principle of financial democracy as stipulated in the Constitution. We find it unacceptable from the standpoint of fulfilling the Diet function as a watchdog of power."

Past related article:
> Shii comments on gov’t-proposed 2nd supplementary budget [May 29, 2020]