The Yomiuri Shimbun
Prime Minister Taro Aso aims to correct the structural reform drive set out by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi by launching a panel to hammer out a vision of society giving greater priority to providing a sense of security in social welfare and the economy.
The panel, whose mission is to explore ways to realize a secure society, held its first meeting Monday at the Prime Minister's Office. The body is discussing revisions to basic economic and social welfare policies in employment, medical services and nursing care, public pensions and child-raising assistance.
The panel is scheduled to issue a report outlining a set of proposals in mid-June. The Aso administration aims to present debates over its vision for the state with an eye on the next House of Representatives election.
At the meeting's outset, Aso said: "I want this panel to discuss not only individual policies but also a national vision that Japan should pursue. I want to clarify a road map leading to a society where people can live with a sense of security."
Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano, who is also state minister for financial services and state minister for economic and fiscal policy, said at the meeting, "I ask you to freely conduct discussions from a detached perspective."
"[By this] I mean members don't need to take into account the positions or interests of specific political parties or the Cabinet," Yosano said.
From the government, Aso, Yosano and Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura attended the meeting. Aso named Yutaka Narita, supreme adviser of Dentsu Inc., as the panel chairman.
During the meeting, Prof. Hiroshi Yoshikawa of Tokyo University said: "The graying population and changes in the family [in which parents and children do not live together in many cases] have increased the level of unfairness and obstructed midlevel welfare systems. We have to take the situation seriously."
Tsuneo Watanabe, chairman of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, mentioned a government plan to issue interest-free government bonds, the holders of which would be exempted from inheritance tax or receive reductions in gift taxes when transferring assets.
"Rather than benefit the wealthy, the plan contributes more money to the socially weak from a comprehensive perspective," he said.
The panel will hold meetings twice monthly to discuss such issues as government-private sector role-sharing for social welfare purposes and government policy priorities.
Political observers said the panel also aims to lay the groundwork for a future hike in the consumption tax rate by making the case that securing stable sources of revenue is necessary for financing social welfare systems.
Prof. Taro Miyamoto of Hokkaido University said, "I propose to revive the idea of a secure society especially in the field of employment by reinforcing social welfare measures."
Yoshio Yazaki, head of the National Hospital Organization, said, "Improving social welfare is the most important safety net to support the [financial] bottom line in people's lives."
At the meeting, many panel members said rebuilding social welfare systems is essential to realize a society with a sense of security.
Though no member directly proposed raising the consumption tax rate, Yosano, who leads the panel, has been an advocate of a hike in the rate.
In December, Aso released a midterm basic policy program for drastic taxation reforms starting in fiscal 2011, which included a review on the consumption tax rate. But the current economic slump has effectively put a damper on discussion of tax hikes. Aso and Yosano aim to appeal to the public over the need to secure stable sources of funding to finance social welfare, using the panel comprising a broad range of experts as leverage.
Regarding the Aso administration's shift from the structural reform drives initiated by Koizumi, Toshiro Muto, chairman of the Daiwa Institute of Research, said: "Though debates included the argument that the private sector should take on more social welfare obligations, the public sector has a responsibility to stay involved from a perspective of social fairness. The public sector's role needs to be redefined."
He added, "To make society more balanced again, we need to instill a degree of ethical factors into the market principles [that had governed the debate over the role of the private sector]."
Watanabe said: "I learned bitter lessons from the failed attempts to realize a small government. Ways of thinking like that of Mr. Koizumi were not necessarily proper."
In 2006, Koizumi hammered out a policy to realize small government by cutting government expenditures by up to 14 trillion yen between fiscal 2007 and 2011, as part of his basic policy outline for fiscal and economic management and structural reforms.
But Aso has told aides, "A small government can't help provincial regions that have been in tired decline."
Yosano and his colleagues believe the government's Council on Fiscal and Economic Policy has many members advocating such a structural reform drive, according to Yosano's aides.
Thus, Yosano plans to shift the policy to one that aims to achieve "a government warm [and receptive] to [the needs of] the public," which Aso has described, by setting up the new panel.
The panel's proposal will be reflected in the 2009 version of a large-boned policy that the government will decide in late June.
If the proposal can be drafted before the next general election, the ruling parties said they also would include it in their election campaign pledges.
(Apr. 19, 2009)
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