The lack of constructive debates in the Diet is a grave situation. The ruling and opposition parties should broadly delve into the tasks of national politics without merely engaging in political maneuvering.
The fiscal 2019 budget has been enacted. Amid growing uncertainty over economic prospects, it is necessary to steadily carry out measures incorporated into the 101 trillion yen general account.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stressed to reporters that his administration will take every possible step regarding economic management. To prepare for the consumption tax rate hike scheduled for October, the government will take economic measures worth 2 trillion yen. It should smoothly implement these measures to develop the environment for the planned hike.
A focus during the budget deliberation was inappropriate handling of statistics. Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry bureaucrats had long repeatedly carried out some of their duties in an unthinking way, resulting in distorted statistics, underpayment of employment insurance benefits and other problems.
The subsequent investigation into the cause of the debacle was marred by doubts about its neutrality, inevitably leading to an additional investigation. The government bears great responsibility for having continued to respond to this matter without a sense of seriousness.
The Diet deliberation should have been an important opportunity to shed more light on the organizational problems behind this scandal and map out measures to prevent any repeat of it.
Yet the opposition parties, in their questioning, put priority on inflicting blows on the government by criticizing the incident as a case of "falsification for the so-called Abenomics economic policy package" in which statistics were manipulated for the convenience of the Cabinet. The prime minister and Cabinet members, for their part, noticeably attempted to get through the situation by giving stock answers.
This spectacle of confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties has left an unpleasant aftertaste.
Discuss top law revision
Statistics are important measurements that become the basis for the government and other entities to formulate policies, and for the private sector to make managerial judgments. It is imperative to find reasonable ways of handling them that will regain public confidence. The government and the ruling and opposition parties should sincerely discuss concrete countermeasures.
The latter half of the current Diet session will focus on full-scale deliberation on a package of bills aimed to provide free preschool education and nursery services. It is also important to pay attention to medium- and long-term challenges posed by the rapidly aging population and declining number of children.
It is indispensable to strike a balance between economic revitalization and achieving fiscal soundness, and also to build a sustainable social security system. It is also an urgent task to take measures to secure an adequate workforce in increasingly depopulated provincial regions to help maintain their vitality.
It is advisable that the opposition parties, for their part, present overall pictures of their own economic and social security policies and challenge a constructive debate with the government. They cannot vie with the current long-term administration, which has a stable political foundation, only through repeated grilling on scandal-focused issues.
It is also necessary for Diet members of ruling and opposition parties alike to enhance their abilities to point out the problems of policies and get to the bottom of them.
The current stagnated debates on the Constitution cannot be overlooked. It is a duty of the Diet to constantly review the nation's top law in a way that suits the changing times. The Commission on the Constitution in each chamber of the Diet should be reopened at the earliest possible date to conduct free debate sessions in which each party will express its view on the Constitution.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, March 28, 2019)
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