Japan Press Weekly

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2009 July 29 - August 14 [ELECTION]

Highlights of JCP platform for House of Representatives general election

1. Defending people’s livelihoods and basic rights

Employment
The JCP calls for (a) an end to the destruction of employment and expansion of assistance to the employed; (b) job creation to be promoted in nursing-care services, health care services, and child-care services; and (c) the Worker Dispatch Law to be revised drastically and the rules of employment established.

Health care
The JCP calls for (a) abolition of the health insurance system discriminating against the elderly aged 75 and older; (b) health care services to be provided without requiring patients to pay fees for services at the hospital, a practice which is common in many developed capitalist countries; and (c) free medical care for children before school age and the elderly aged 75 and over as a first step toward total free medical services.

Childcare
The JCP calls for (a) the building more authorized child care centers so that no one will be on waiting lists; (b) increase in the monthly amount of child allowance to 10,000 yen a month for dependent children up to 18 years old; (c) making high school tuition-free; (d) a reform of the current student loan system, including the introduction of scholarship grants; and (d) reduction of university tuition fees, which are the world’s highest.

Fiscal sources
The JCP calls for (1) reforming expenditures to save about five trillion yen through substantial cuts in spending for military buildup and for unnecessary public works projects, such as Tokyo’s new beltway construction and (2) reforming ways and means through ending excessive tax breaks for large corporations and the wealthy, asking them to pay taxes according to their ability to pay.

(2) Implementation of an independent diplomacy for peace guided by
Article 9

The JCP will play an active role in (a) making the world nuclear weapons-free so that all nuclear weapons will be eliminated; (b) forcing the government to make public the secret Japan-U.S. agreements on the handling of U.S. nuclear weapons and making Japan genuinely nuclear weapon-free; (c) stopping the overseas dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces, which is in violation of Article 9 of the Constitution; (d) opposing the plan to strengthen the function of U.S. military bases in Japan as permanent bases in order to turn Japan into a peaceful country free of foreign military bases; and (e) promoting equal relations with the United States through abrogating the Japan -U.S. Security Treaty (military alliance).
- Akahata, July 29, 2009