The Diet got down to business Wednesday with a plenary session in which party representatives posed questions to the government. Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu Tanigaki, a former finance minister and now an opposition leader, led off by grilling Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in the Lower House.
Mr. Tanigaki said measures in the Democratic Party of Japan's election manifesto are not feasible and that people cannot entrust Japan's future to the DPJ-led government because its policies and operating style are problematic. He accused the Hatoyama administration of seeking a conflicting policy of "high welfare benefits with low tax burdens," adding that this would eventually swell government debt and, hence, people's financial burdens.
He also said the inconsistency he sees in the views aired by the prime minister and other Cabinet members on such issues as the reloaction of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Facility in Okinawa and the Maritime Self-Defense Force's fueling mission in the Indian Ocean could undermine trust between Japan and the United States, thus jeopardizing Japan's security.