On May 16, DP President Katsuya Okada posed questions regarding the Abe administration’s attitude to (1) the supplementary budget and (2) the economy and livelihoods, in a meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Budget.

Firstly, Okada commented on the issue of the prefectural or local authorities being unable to adequately distribute relief goods in the immediate aftermath of the Kumamoto earthquake, saying, “I want the government to reflect on this and to set up a better system in the future.”  He went on to mention the supplementary budget to be used to help deal with the response to the disaster, which had passed the plenary session of the House that same day with the approval of the DP, stressing, “Appropriating 700 billion yen of reserve funds is unprecedented.  The DP also judged that there was no alternative, but we must not allow such methods to become a common practice.” 

Okada also gave his assessment of Abenomics, saying, “The fact is that the majority of the Japanese people do not feel that economic recovery has been realized.  Abenomics has reduced interest rates, pushed exchange rates in the direction of a falling yen, and caused share prices to rise.  These were the actual driving forces [of Abenomics].  But their movement has started to change.  Now we have a strong yen and shares have also been fluctuating violently.  In other words these driving forces have started to falter.  Prime Minister Abe stated, ‘There is no way forward but Abenomics’ when he dissolved the House of Representatives for a general election. Consequently, the public expected that he would deliver in terms of economic policy, but he has focused all his attention on security legislation at the expense of the economy.”

Furthermore, Okada stated, “The Prime Minister says that what is important are the third arrow of structural reforms.  I am of the same opinion.  Basically we share the philosophy of employing a growth strategy in order to stimulate private sector investment.  It was the DPJ government who created the national growth strategy.  What is significant, however, is that this strategy by itself is insufficient.  It is important to have policies that enable each person to live their live free from anxiety and to possess the expectation that they can become rich.  Prime Minister Abe is talking about ‘promoting dynamic engagement of all 100 million citizens’, but the issue is whether this can be actually be realized or not.  I want him to go beyond mouthing fine-sounding words and to state exactly what he intends to do.”