2009/11/30
Glimpses of Japan（外国人から見た日本）
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Glimpses of Japan (外国人から見た日本)
vol.267 Cutting Costs
2009.11.30
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I have been watching, with a mixture of fascination and amusement,
the various government budget cost cutting discussions being televised
recently, and the various news "analyses"/reports about them.
I'm quite happy to see actual, relatively public, relatively "transparent"
discussion of budget items being carried out. I have been very unhappy
about tax money being wasted on lots of useless, or pork barrel, or
obsolete, or just hare-brained projects, or on often shameless perquisites
for civil servants. If the current committees and working groups manage to
reach?or exceed, although that's unlikely, I believe?the three trillion yen
reduction target, I'll be pretty much pleased.
However, I have to admit that watching some of the remarkably inarticulate
and seemingly unprepared bureaucrats trying to defend their projects'
budget requests almost gets sympathy even from my coldly cynical heart.
It's hard to understand why so many of the ministry bureaucrats' answers
to perfectly legitimate "why do you need this much money?" questions are
being answered with, essentially, "just because".
The DPJ lawmakers have, of course, a strong interest in showing how
different the new ruling party is from the vanquished LDP. They also
have very strong motivation to find enough money to fund some of the
things, such as allowances for children, which they promised in the
election campaign and their manifesto. Since one of the basic new policies
is that budget debate and decisions will be made by legislators rather
than by bureaucrats as was essentially the case in the past, there is a
lot of pressure to be very ruthless. The time frame makes efficient
(or at least fast) action important, too, for their image not less than
for the government's spending.
So the discussions (it's hard to call them debates, really) are fast and
pretty vicious, relentless and unforgiving. They're pretty one-sided, too,
power-wise. I'm reminded of a guppy in a pool of sharks, or of some poor
clueless individual who has had the misfortune to bring a pocketknife to
a gunfight.
There have been complaints in the media and especially from the new
opposition party, with some justification I believe, that the decisions
are being made too quickly, without adequate discussion and in some cases
maybe with a lack of thorough understanding of the issues involved.
That's almost certainly so in some cases, maybe even in many. I don't think
that there was significantly greater understanding when the LDP was at the
helm, though; they seem to have pretty much given the bureaucrats free rein,
and finally paid for it by being ousted.
There have also been complaints, again by both the LDP and some of the media,
that the DPJ is engaging in "performances" before the cameras at these budget
discussions.
I find that risible.
None of those doing the complaining can fail to be aware that politics is
largely about performances, and they are exceptionally ingenuous to even
bring it up. None of them are that na?ve, and I don't think that many
taxpaying voters are, either.
Glimpses of Japan vol.267
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