The government should not set an income limit next year on which families can receive the child-rearing allowance or slash funding for a project to develop the world's fastest supercomputer, Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Sunday.
Kan made the comments after calls arose separately last week to review the child allowance program and the supercomputer funding given the government's chronic financial woes.
On the child allowances — a signature election pledge of the Democratic Party of Japan — Kan said a proposal to exclude families with relatively high incomes could be considered in the future along with a taxpayer identification number system.
When more Cabinet members, including Kan, called last Wednesday for a review of the child allowance program, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said the "fundamental principle" of not setting an income cap should be maintained.
In its platform for the Aug. 30 election, the DPJ promised to provide monthly payments of ¥13,000 in fiscal 2010 and ¥26,000 in the following years for each child up to junior high school age to families of any income.
"The clerical work (for imposing an income limit) is easy if a number system is in place, but without the system, it would be an enormous amount of work and could become too costly," Kan said Sunday.
The cost-cutting Government Revitalization Unit has recommended drastic cuts to the ¥26.7 billion budget requested for the supercomputer project, Kan said.
"A policy decision will be made politically," he said.