The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, has drawn up guidelines for a range of structural reforms planned by his administration. These policy outlines, designed to reshape Japan's outmoded economic society, are by and large acceptable.
The guidelines give clarity to the broad proposals the prime minister put forward in his policy speech last month. The blueprint calls for, among other things, the reallocation of road tax revenues, reduction of central-government grants to local governments, restriction of the overall cost of medical care, and privatization of public corporations.
These subjects have been broached before, but they have never been discussed in real earnest because they were considered political taboos. So it is of great significance that they have been put on the political agenda, although it is unclear at the moment how they will be handled. Credit must go to Koizumi for singling out these issues for reform.