Japan Press Weekly

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2011 April 6 - 12 [POLITICS]

Citing ‘reconstruction’, LDP, DPJ & Komei ignore livelihoods

Political parties other than the Japanese Communist Party are arguing one after another to reduce the budgets for social services under the pretext of “reconstruction” from the major disaster.

At the House of Representatives Health, Labor and Welfare Committee meeting on March 29, Kato Katsunobu from the Liberal Democratic Party said, “How can we afford to spend the large sum of over two trillion yen for child-care allowances when we need more than 10 trillion yen for reconstruction?”

LDP President Tanigaki Sadakazu argued that budgets for child allowances, a tuition-free system for junior-high schools, income compensation for individual agricultural households, and a toll-free expressway system should be allocated to reconstruction funds (March 30).

Komei Party Representative Yamaguchi Natsuo added, “All non-essential budget items need to be curtailed, and child-care allowances are not exception. A review of the child-care allowances will generate about one trillion yen” (March 29).

The study team of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan intends to propose that the government create a special consumption tax and a special corporate tax. The team will also propose an increase in the income tax rate.

JCP Lower House member Takahashi Chizuko at the House welfare committee meeting on March 29 said, “The JCP agrees that some nonessential budget items be used as funds for reconstruction, but warns against neglecting the serious poverty facing children. The JCP does not side with the argument that children away from the disaster must not be too demanding. It is unacceptable to seek an easy answer by slashing budgets that directly affect people’s living conditions.”

In the JCP argument, funds for reconstruction can be secured by ending the “sympathy” budget for the U.S. forces in Japan, terminating non-essential large-scale public works projects, abolishing government subsidies to political parties, and issuing national bonds for reconstruction.

Claiming the need to choose between the national task of reconstruction from the disaster and the public demand for improved education and social services will end in reduced social services and education opportunities in which everyone will suffer.