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.”