In his New Year's news conference on Jan. 4, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said he will focus his policy efforts on supporting the recovery and reconstruction of areas devastated by the March 11 quake and tsunami, dealing with the consequences of the nuclear accident and re-energizing the faltering Japanese economy.
He added that the “biggest hurdle” to overcome is following through on his proposal of integrated tax and social security reform.
We applaud him for pushing for this unpopular policy initiative to avoid, as much as possible, shifting the burden to future generations.
Late last year, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, after much political wrangling, decided on a plan to raise the consumption tax rate to 10 percent from the current 5 percent through a two-step process.
Noda promised to formalize the party’s draft plan by the end of this week and propose bipartisan talks on the tax issue next week.
The opposition parties, especially the Liberal Democratic Party, which has political responsibility as one of the two major parties, should accept Noda’s proposal and hold talks with the DPJ on the tax increase.
LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki has rejected the prime minister's proposal, saying the DPJ, which came to power by promising not to raise the consumption tax, has no right to propose a tax increase.
But Tanigaki and the LDP should give the matter very careful thought.
There is no sufficiently effective system to restrain the relentless growth in social security spending, and there are many issues that still need to be tackled.
Many DPJ lawmakers are strongly opposed to the proposed consumption tax increase. More DPJ members could leave the party or refuse to toe the party line when the government submits a bill to boost the levy or when the Diet votes on such a bill.
The LDP might also say it cannot deal with the Noda administration, which has let two Cabinet members who have been censured by the Upper House to retain their jobs.
Yet the LDP should remember that it promised to raise the consumption tax to 10 percent during its campaign for the Upper House election in 2010.
The LDP would make a mockery of its claim to be a responsible opposition party if it refuses even to hold talks with the ruling party over a proposal to achieve a policy goal that is almost identical to its own.
There is no denying that the LDP is putting priority on partisan politics with an eye to driving the Noda administration into dissolving the Lower House for a snap election.
The DPJ should certainly be severely criticized for violating a policy promise it made in its election manifesto. But the ruling party will inevitably face the voters’ verdict in the next Lower House election.
The economic crisis in Europe has made it glaringly obvious that Japan urgently needs to fix its public finances, which are in a shambles.
Global markets are closely watching Japanese politics, trying to assess Japan’s ability to make gutsy policy decisions.
The integrated reform, however, is not the only policy challenge that requires constructive bipartisanship.
Most of the important tasks that were left unfinished at the end of the autumn Diet session cannot be carried out without an agreement between the ruling and opposition parties. These include correcting the disparity in the relative weight of one vote for general elections, reducing the number of seats in the Lower House, cutting the salaries of government employees and postal services reform.
This year, both the DPJ and the LDP will hold their leadership elections in September. There will no doubt be much more political haggling in the coming months.
But the ruling and opposition parties need to face up to the reality that Japanese voters are sick and tired of continued political paralysis.
Let us all carefully watch how our politicians act during this crucial year to prepare for the next opportunity to hand down our verdict on their performances.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 5
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