Reluctant to Salary Cut

Cheerful, bold, determined, rich, conspiratorial, cunning and selfish. Those are common images people have on political leaders. Now, Japanese lawmakers has been revealing their reluctance on continuing reward cut, which started right after the Great East Japan Earthquake three year ago. They suffer both from low income and skeptical eyes of the nation. This is obviously a matter of moral obligation.

After the unprecedented disaster, the lawmakers decided to introduce new taxes to earn costs for the reconstruction of devastated area. Most people thought the tax would be inevitable to support their fellow citizens. Then, the question was about what political leaders could to them. The answer was “Ok, we reduce our salary to contribute the helping effort.”

In May 2011, they cut their monthly reward by 13% to contribute the reconstruction budget, and at the end of the year added 7% cut until the reduction of number of seats in both Houses would be achieved. Monthly reward for lawmakers was consequently reduced from ¥1.294 millions to ¥1.035 million.

The most reluctant is leading Liberal Democratic Party. It has a number of freshmen after the last lower house election, who are generally unstable in financial aspect. To avoid corruption, the government strictly regulates political money. Campaign money is basically provided through political parties. LDP is suffering from uncontrollable frustration of young lawmakers who require money for their political activities. “Should the lawmakers suffer from dire straits?” told LDP Secretary General, Shigeru Ishiba.

New Komeito argues that 7% cut should be continued, even if they abolish the rest of 13%. While Your Party upholds 30% cut of salary and 50% cut of bonus, Restoration Party has sharp rift inside between 10 % cut and 30% cut. Democrats and Communists are making slow progress, saying “We are under consideration.”

They need to fix the problem soon, because current salary cut is facing expiration at the end of this month. But the thing is that they are waiting for it, preparing a justification of “Well, we tried hard but we could not reach a deal because of someone else’s rigorous protests.”

But their effort for reconstruction has low profile from the perspectives of the public. Over two hundred thousands people are still in evacuation, decontamination efforts in Fukushima are significantly slow and economic policy causes high price of raw materials necessary for reconstruction. Only active in requiring their own benefits, the lawmakers appear to be disturbances for helping suffering people.