Strong Taste for Military

For Ministry of Finance, August is the time for planning the budget for next fiscal year. The budgetary request guidelines for FY 2015, which would be applied to every ministry, showed positive spending for military, while it recognized less importance for welfare. It also included special budget for supporting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s liking growth policy. Tax money will discretionarily be used by the Premier.

Military budget seemed to become a sanctuary. When Abe Cabinet decided exercise of collective self-defense right early July, Minister of Finance, Taro Aso, declared that he would organize next year budget for endorsing effective deterrence, which meant bold spending for military. In budgetary request in September, Ministry of Defense will not submit concrete amount of spending and be allowed requesting after the deadline. Military budget for next year is supposed to be including subsidy for local governments that will accept burden of United States Force in Japan. Purchasing brand-new transporter MV-22 Osprey, vessels for landing operation and fighter jet F-35 will also be included in next year’s budget.

A victim of military spending will be social security. Number of aged people has kept on expanding these years and natural increase is expected for next year. Ministry ofFinance calculated the increase as worth as ¥830 billion and allowed no more budget. The government will not apply new policy for social security next year with such a restricted amount of budget. Nursing service will shrink for less handicapped recipients and pay of patients will be raised next year.

As one of the strategies for winning general local election next spring, Abe instructed finance section to establish new framework for prioritized policies, which would be amounted to ¥4 trillion. The budget for the special request will include “local revitalizing” and “growth strategy.” It is obvious that those “strategies” mean more investment on infrastructure, because construction firms all over Japan are generally supporters for Liberal Democratic Party. It is a growth policy only for the old establishments in the time of high growth era in 1960s and 70s.

This kind of one-sided use of tax money will distort balance of national budget. It is highly likely that national deficit will be added on next year, fundamentally jeopardizing Japanese economy. Abe’s policy will not lead to structural reform. Japanese economy may embrace a serious risk of being trapped in a vicious cycle of distorted budget, more deficits, less wage and more job losses.