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On March 29, the budget for fiscal 2011, amounting to 92.4116 trillion yen, was passed by the House of Representatives. DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada commented to reporters regarding this, saying: “It took a little bit of time, but I am really pleased that the budget was passed with the cooperation of the opposition parties. We will now be able to use 1.1 trillion yen of contingency funds from April 4, and I believe we will be able to implement thorough interim measures to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami."
Okada also referred to the fact that the “stopgap bill” extending the tax reduction and exemption measures that were due to expire at the end of March had been passed by the House of Representatives. He said, “This makes enactment of the legislation certain. I am also pleased about this.” He added, “With regard to the main plank of proposals for tax system reform, we intend to take a little bit of time to discuss them thoroughly with the opposition parties.”
With regard to legislation giving special provisions to issue government bonds, Okada pointed out, “As we work to implement disaster response measures, there is no way that we can manage this without special government bonds.” He said that this legislation would provide the legal basis for issuing such bonds and that without it the bonds could not be issued, and disaster response measures could not be implemented. Okada added, “Considering these points, [the opposition] could normally be expected to cooperate so that this legislation could be enacted within the current fiscal year, but unfortunately that was not the case, and so we have no choice but to do our utmost to ensure that it will be enacted as soon as possible.”
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