The ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is seeking to submit a third extra budget to the parliament as early as mid-August and certainly by early September, party lawmakers confirmed Monday.
DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada indicated that a third extra budget would be an essential catalyst to getting post- disaster reconstructions firing on all cylinders and suggested the budget could exceed 10 trillion yen (124.64 billion U.S. dollars).
To ensure cooperation from a divergent main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in passing the new extra budget and a bill necessary for the issuance of deficit-covering bonds in fiscal 2011 through a divided parliament, Prime Minister Kaoto Kan, amid mounting pressure from within his own DPJ and from opposition parties, is expected to announce in the next few days exactly when he plans to step down in July, the lawmakers said.
Kan, already Japan's fifth premier in as many years, survived a no-confidence vote earlier this month after promising critics in his own party he would quit.
But the embattled premier was overtly ambiguous when it came to saying exactly when he would resign from office, which drew the ire of his adversaries in both opposition and from within his own party.
As for the second supplementary budget, the DPJ is seeking to have this passed by the middle of July and the funds have been earmarked to provide relief to those still suffering in the wake of the March 11 twin disasters.
The second budget has been pegged in the region of 2 trillion yen, while the initial budget ratified in May, totaled 4.02 trillion yen.
The ruling DPJ also announced Monday that it will extend a session of parliament to approve the extra spending, due to end on Wednesday as per parliamentary scheduling, by three months.
Lawmakers said the current session parliament will now conclude on Oct. 20. to allow time for deliberations on the extra spending necessary to rebuild areas on Japan's east and northeast coastline which were pummeled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
DPJ executives are betting on the extra time allocation hopefully being enough to garner the necessary support from a hostile opposition LDP who is at odds with the DPJ over such issues as a state scheme to support Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the radiation-leaking Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station, in making compensation payments to thousands of victims of the ongoing nuclear crisis centered in Fukushima prefecture about 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.
And as the nation's deteriorating public finances come increasingly to the fore, with Japan in desperate need of reining in public debt already twice the size of its 5 trillion U.S. dollar economy and compounded by a massive post-quake and tsunami restoration bill, and an ongoing nuclear crisis, DPJ ministers and senior lawmakers were, on Monday, supposed to finalize plans to raise Japan's consumption tax.
However, the DPJ's tax panel were at odds Monday over the proposal, which seeks to counter the nation's burgeoning social security costs as the nation rapidly ages, with members saying the matter needed more debate.
One panel member was quoted as saying the timing of the tax hike may be off and concerns were also raised about the economic impact of the raise.
The tax reform plan, which had a (DPJ) self-enforced deadline of June 20, was supposed to roll out the idea of doubling the sales tax to 10 percent in stages by fiscal 2015, which will end in March 2016.
However, key players from Kan's DPJ and its junior coalition partner, the People's New Party, maintained their objections to the tax plan and hence the thorny deliberations will continue.
Editor: Zhang Xiang
English.news.cn 2011-06-20 21:14:58 FeedbackPrintRSS
TOKYO, June 20 (Xinhua)
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