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On December 25, Prime Minister and DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama held a press conference to announce the outline of the budget for fiscal 2010. Hatoyama emphasized that the budget aimed to protect lives and was based on the principle of shifting the focus of spending “from concrete to people”.
At the start of the press conference, Hatoyama stressed the unique characteristics of the budget, saying, “We have tried to make clear through this budget what kind of nation we are attempting to build. I would describe it as a budget that protects lives.” He went on to state that the new administration had succeeded in carrying out three reforms to the budget formation process, these being, 1) to follow the principle of shifting the focus of spending “from concrete to people”, 2) to draft the budget under the authority of politicians rather than that of the Ministry of Finance and the bureaucracy, and 3) to thoroughly eliminate funds allocated to wasteful and non-urgent items through the budget review process.
Hatoyama further announced that the size of the budget would be an unprecedented 92.3 trillion yen, that 11 trillion yen of this would be found from sources other than tax revenues, and that the amount of government bonds that would need to be issued would not exceed the target limit of approximately 44 billion yen. He said that the government “had fulfilled its responsibility to future generations.”
Moreover, Hatoyama said that the amount of spending on social security had increased by 9.8% in comparison with the budget for the previous fiscal year, while spending on public works projects had been slashed by 18.3%, thus illustrating that the shift in focus from concrete to people had been realised.
He also explained that the DPJ government had fulfilled the majority of its pledges made to the Japanese people in its Manifesto, with the exception of the elimination of provisional tax rate on gasoline, having succeeded in realising provisions to implement a universal child allowance, free high school education, individual household income allowances for farmers, and the abolition of motorway tolls.
Furthermore, he explained that a special allocation of 2 trillion yen in funds had been made in order to prevent the economy from falling into recession for a second time, and that funds for employment adjustment subsidies had been increased tenfold in order to protect 750,000 jobs in large corporations and 1.55 million jobs in small and medium sized enterprises.
Hatoyama indicated that future issues to be dealt with would include the speedy development of a growth strategy that would focus on employment, the environment, children and Asia, placing Japan on the road toward fiscal health, and the creation of roundtable conferences and the like to engage public opinion with a view to creating a “new concept of public service” in Japan. He closed by saying that he wanted to “create a better Japan”.
In response to a question regarding consumption tax, Hatoyama said that he would keep the party’s pledge not to raise it for the next four years, made at the recent general election, and said that “we will make even more effort than before to reduce spending.” Furthermore, with regard to the year on year process chart in the Manifesto, he said, that since the government had been unable to realize every item in the first year of the budget, “We will preserve the key points [of the Manifesto] which revising them during application, and call for the people’s understanding for such revisions.”
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