August 3, 2010

Prime Minister Kan Naoto in the House of Representatives Budget Committee on August 2 replied to Liberal Democratic Party President Tanigaki Sadakazu’s question on a bill to increase the consumption tax rate, which the LDP is to re-submit to the coming extraordinary Diet session, by saying that he is seriously considering the proposal and will study it carefully.

That the prime minister has shown his support for the bill to be submitted by the LDP in the name of rehabilitating national finances sheds light on the danger that the DPJ and LDP may form a grand coalition over a consumption tax increase in violation of public opinion expressed in the House of Councilors election.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a news conference on the day warned about the danger that the prime minister’s statement to LDP president Tanigaki assuring “careful study” of the LDP bill allegedly to help rehabilitate national finances may bring about a grand coalition between the two major parties on the consumption tax increase.

Ichida stressed that no harmful policies affecting the public at large should be imposed under any grand coalition arranged in the name of dissolving the disproportionate composition of ruling and opposition parties between the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors.
-Akahata, August 3, 2010