 Protests staged against government draft budget The Finance Ministry's plan for the budget for fiscal 2005 has caused a wave of protests as it will add to the hardships of disadvantaged people and all those who are hard hit by the prolonged economic recession. The budget plan includes scaling down the fixed-rate tax cuts and suggests raising the consumption tax rate to more than 10 percent. In front of the Diet, members of elderly people's organizations braved the winter cold to carry out a sit-in in protest for four days from December 19. A participant said, "Many of us are forced to live on only the amount of money (several hundred dollars) we receive as pension benefits each month. How can we pay more in taxes and nursing care insurance premiums? The government is proposing a budget that will abandon elderly people." Representatives of the National Association for Safeguarding People's Life and Health (Zenseiren) on December 21 visited ministries and government agencies concerned to demand that they stop reducing pension benefits as well as increase educational subsidies to students in need of financial assistance. A member of the association said, "My son earns 8,000 yen a day. Even though his annual income is only one million yen, ten percent is deducted from it in income tax. He has given up seeking a full-time job and now tends to stay at home all the time. Such persons cannot get public assistance. Who can approve this kind of budget plan?" On the same day, parents, students, and high school teachers staged a sit-in at the Finance Ministry, demanding an increase in expenditure for education to reduce the class size to under 30 students and use more tax money for subsidies to private schools, and demanded that the proposed increase in state-run university tuitions be withdrawn. A high school student from Kanagawa prefecture shouted, "Our classmates have collected 260,000 signatures calling for more state subsidies to be given to private schools. We don't want to give up our dreams because of the lack of money." (end) |