February 15, 2025

Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Tamura Tomoko on February 14 demanded that the draft national budget for fiscal 2025 be fundamentally recompiled since it does not pay sufficient attention to improving people’s livelihoods and centers on huge military spending and pork-barrel spending to promote big business interests.

At a press conference in the Diet building, Tamura pointed out that in the draft budget currently under Diet deliberation, in contrast to the low growth in spending related to people’s livelihoods, such as social welfare services, education, and support for small- and mid-sized enterprises, military spending increased by 9.5% from a year earlier. Tamura demanded that the government slash the proposed military budget significantly by such means as cancelling the plan to enhance Self-Defense Forces base functions and the purchase of weapons aimed at attacking enemy bases; halting the construction of a new U.S. base in Okinawa’s Henoko and discontinuing all expenditures for the U.S. military in Japan; and giving up on the planned tax hike slated for FY 2026 to cover the military buildup policy.

Tamura said that since the inauguration of the Abe government in 2012, large corporations have enjoyed the continuation of corporate tax cuts and preferential tax measures, and that in 2023, the amount of tax cuts given to large corporations reached 11 trillion yen. Tamura pointed out that even the ruling bloc’s tax reform plan for FY 2025 acknowledged that an increase in large corporations’ profits through tax breaks did not contribute to higher wages or an increase in domestic investment. She claimed that as the JCP proposed, it is necessary to apply a corporate tax rate of 28% to larger enterprises as it was before the Abe administration; terminate or reduce preferential tax treatments for big businesses; and withdraw the pork-barrel policy designed to benefit major semiconductor makers.

Tamura stressed that in order to revive people’s livelihoods and Japan’s overall economy, the need is to redirect government policies to ones supporting people’s daily lives. She said that in this regard, the JCP proposal calls for government measures which include realizing a direct assistance for wage hikes at SMEs and a minimum hourly wage hike to 1,500 yen; reforming and improving social welfare programs to support people of all ages; increasing budgets for education and childrearing; lowering the consumption tax rate to 5% and abolishing the consumption-tax invoice system; raising government spending for the promotion of gender equality; and increasing financial help for disaster-affected people significantly.

Tamura said, “As a result of the lax financial policy: the huge military buildup and financial favors for big businesses, the financial crisis has become even more serious. Putting an end to such politics will make it possible to implement an expansionary fiscal policy that will enable a reduction in the consumption tax rate and a substantial increase in budget that will help improve people’s livelihoods.” She expressed her determination to work hard to realize the JCP budget recompilation proposal.