Ruling and opposition parties on Monday expressed conflicting views of the government's decision to cut the fiscal 2002 general account budget by 1.7 percent from the initial fiscal 2001 budget, while capping net bond issues at 30 trillion yen.
Taku Yamasaki, secretary general of the dominant Liberal Democratic Party, said the proposed 81.23 trillion yen budget "will certainly help put the economy back on a recovery track from the mid- to long-term perspective, as the government has stuck to the policy of capping net bond issues at 30 trillion yen."
But a senior official of the LDP's Policy Research Council questioned the ability of the budget to pump-prime the economy by generating sufficient demand for goods and services.