Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, second from right, addresses a session of the Children’s Future Strategy Council on May 22. (Jin Nishioka)

Here is a perfectly valid criticism against how the government sometimes works: “The issuance of government bonds, which is the same as falling into debt, is tantamount to using tax money paid by future voters who were not yet eligible to vote in a general election at the time so the government would have the capital to pander to the current taxpaying public.”

It reads a bit like a newspaper editorial, but it isn’t. It is an excerpt from a 2010 Liberal Democratic Party document explaining the party platform that called for fiscal rehabilitation. The LDP was out of power at the time.

The document also accuses the then-Democratic Party of Japan administration of resorting to pork barrel politics with its signature child allowance policy, and it goes on to caution against naively thinking that reducing budgetary waste will generate the necessary funds.

Because politics is a living thing, any political party will revise its policies in keeping with the changes in the world and where public interest lies. However, the party platform represents the party’s fundamental policies. The above LDP document states, “(Our party platform) is not only for while we are out of power.”

As I keep reading about the workings of the government criticized in the document, I realize they begin to reflect none other than the ways of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration.

His Cabinet will approve his “big-boned policies” as early as today.

The policy to fight the chronically low birthrate will be an extremely generous “splurge” that provides child allowances to all households irrespective of income. As for the increase in the defense budget, it is so enormous, it would have been simply inconceivable in the past.

Yet, the funding sources for both are unclear, and the administration seems to be relying only on spending reform by looking for wasteful expenditures.

Fiscal burdens are being put off. The decision to be reached by the administration will probably read like an example of convoluted writing: “It may be possible to defer until an appropriate time after 2025.”

As for the policy concerning the fallen birthrate, its implementation will rely on bridge government bonds.

“The party platform is the party’s constitution,” the 2010 LDP document states. And this constitution must have been voluntarily adopted by the LDP-- not forced on it.

And now, does the party really mean to toss it out?

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 16

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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