 Government approves draft budget; JCP calls for its recompilation Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro's cabinet on December 24 approved a draft budget for FY 2005 that will force people to pay an extra 2 trillion yen a year through scaling down the fixed-rate income and residential tax cuts and shifting the burdens of costs for social services, including meals and room occupancy at nursing homes, onto users even with nursing care insurance. Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a press conference on the same day criticized the budget plan as a first step toward a major tax increase by raising the consumption tax rate to above 10 percent. He said that the JCP calls for the budget to be recompiled to put emphasis on improving living conditions. Ichida warned that a major tax increase will undermine living conditions and cause a serious economic downturn. He criticized the government for trying to shift the burden on to the weak such as the handicapped, people in need of nursing care and livelihood protection, students, small businesses, and the unemployed. Describing the budget as "taking more taxes from where it is easiest for the government to collect," Ichida demanded that the extremely generous tax breaks for large corporations and high income earners be redressed. On the expenditure side, Ichida said that the use of tax money on wasteful large public works projects and the 5 trillion yen military budget should be reduced first of all. (end) |