Diet convenes, debates to focus on extra budget

TOKYO, Jan. 5 Kyodo - Japan's parliament convened Monday for a regular 150-day session, with ruling
and opposition parties expected to clash over a supplementary budget for fiscal
2008 introduced by the government at the outset of the session.
Prime Minister Taro Aso aims to seek prompt passage of the 4.79 trillion yen
second extra budget and a record-high 88.55 trillion yen budget for fiscal
2009, placing priority on expediting measures to help people's livelihoods amid
the economic crisis rather than dissolving the House of Representatives for a
general election.
But Aso is likely to face difficulty seeing the budget bills passed in the
divided Diet, where opposition parties control the House of Councillors while
the ruling camp dominates the more powerful lower chamber.
The prime minister also faces political friction within his own Liberal
Democratic Party, with former administrative reform minister Yoshimi Watanabe
saying Monday he will leave the party if his demands including calling for an
early Diet dissolution for the election are not seriously considered.
As the government and the ruling parties are seeking Diet passage of the fiscal
2009 budget by the end of this fiscal year ending in March, they decided to
have the regular session convened only five days into the new year.
The timing is the earliest since the introduction in 1992 of a practice of
calling regular parliamentary sessions in January under a revised Diet law.
In the morning, Aso told LDP lawmakers, ''It's a good opportunity to show how
the ruling parties are. I'd like to fight it out in the regular Diet session
with new determination.''
Aso's archrival Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of
Japan, told key members of his party, ''It's the year of decisive war.''
Ozawa called for their cooperation by asking them to ''make more efforts to
realize politics turned to the people and overcome a critical situation.''
Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said in his fiscal policy speech at the
outset of the Diet session, ''The world financial and capital markets have
fallen into a crisis that could happen only once in 100 years, resulting in a
global economic downturn.''
''Japan's economy has been negatively affected by this crisis and is worsening
with declines in exports and production, and a slump in consumption,'' he said.
Nakagawa called on parliament to quickly pass the second extra budget and
related bills to ''protect people's livelihoods and the country's economy.''
The second supplementary budget for the current fiscal year from last April to
March this year includes support measures for households, small businesses and
regional economies hit hard by the current economic slowdown.
It was compiled partly to finance stimulus packages totaling 63.5 trillion yen
unveiled by Aso in October and December. The extra budget features a 2.04
trillion yen cash benefit program, which would distribute 12,000 yen per person
to help support households.
The size of the second extra budget exceeds the 1.81 trillion yen first
supplementary budget for fiscal 2008 enacted in October, which was aimed at
supporting businesses and people's livelihoods amid rising commodity prices.
The government is planning to implement the first and second extra budgets as
well as the fiscal 2009 budget ''seamlessly'' to shore up the economy
effectively. The principal budget proposal for the next fiscal year is
scheduled to be presented to the Diet around Jan. 19.
The Diet session is scheduled to run through June 3 for 150 days.
The biggest focus of the regular Diet session is on whether the ruling parties
-- the LDP and its junior partner the New Komeito party -- will succeed in
passing related bills to implement the cash benefit program by holding a second
overriding vote in the lower house in the event they are rejected in the upper
house.
The DPJ is against the program and has been urging the government to abandon
the scheme and use the money for employment measures instead, while some LDP
members, including Watanabe, are also critical of the plan.
DPJ lawmakers said Monday the opposition party will propose to the Diet on
Tuesday a bill to amendment the second extra budget to remove the cash benefit
scheme.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said in a press conference the
government does not intend to abandon the scheme as it is included in the
budget and it has been reported that people have already factored in the
benefit.
''We seek for the related bills for the scheme to be passed as early as
possible to help people's livelihoods, and hope it will lead to a positive
economic effect and the expansion of consumption and domestic demand,'' he
said.
Finance Minister Nakagawa said in a news conference after a Cabinet meeting
Monday morning that the government will seek understanding of the opposition
parties by providing in-depth explanations on the budget.
The Aso government will be pushed into a corner if 17 or more LDP lawmakers
vote against the bills to block their passage when the ruling parties hold a
second vote, which requires a two-thirds majority for approval.
In an extra Diet session which ended Dec. 25, the DPJ introduced to the lower
house a resolution to dissolve the Diet, and the LDP's Watanabe voted for it in
a move which political observers say has potential to stir an ''anti-Aso''
trend within the governing party.
==Kyodo
2009-01-05 22:08:07