Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2012 July 4 - 10 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Don’t raise consumption tax to spend on wasteful public works projects

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The Democratic Party of Japan’s election pledge to reduce wasteful public works projects has again been broken. A plan to build three new Shinkansen train lines was approved right after a passage of a bill to raise the consumption tax rate at the Lower House. It is totally unacceptable for the government to inject a vast amount of tax money into large public works projects while forcing the public to shoulder another burden of 13.5 trillion yen with a consumption tax increase to 10%.

The Shinkansen construction was originally planned by the former government led by the Liberal Democratic Party. The newly-approved plan includes three bullet-train lines: Hokkaido (211 km), Hokuriku (113 km), and Kyushu (21 km). The estimated total amount of budget for the construction plan may very well need to be increased from the presently allotted amount of 3.4 million yen as the plan to construct three Shinkansen lines may take many years, for example 24 years for the Hokkaido line.

The Noda Cabinet has given the green light to the Yanba dam construction and the Tokyo Gaikan Expressway, said to cost more than 100 million yen for each meter of construction. These plans were once approved by the former LDP government but frozen by the DPJ government when it took over the ruling party position.

Not only that, the DPJ, the LDP, and the Komei Party, in their closed-door revision of the consumption tax hike bill, clearly stated in the bill that the tax revenues will be focused on the use for large public works projects under the name of “economic development.” They have now abandoned their claim for the tax increase to “improve social security programs”.

The LDP, which strongly demanded the amendment to the tax hike bill, has submitted to the current Diet session a bill to spend 200 trillion yen over the next 10 years for traditional large public works projects to build “a nationwide express traffic system” and “roads and ports to contribute to strengthening of international competitiveness”.

Such giant public works projects will only pass huge deficits onto future generations. The DPJ and LDP should stop their backroom politicking to promote the consumption tax increase and large public works projects.