On Wednesday the Hatoyama administration's Government Revitalization Unit will begin the task of eliminating wasteful or unnecessary projects from fiscal 2010 budgetary requests, which have bloated to a sum of more than ¥95 trillion. Administrative Reform Minister Yoshito Sengoku, head of the unit, hopes to slash ¥3 trillion. We hope the unit, a policy pillar of the Democratic Party of Japan's election manifesto, will make reasonable, transparent decisions.

Unfortunately, the start of the unit's work was delayed due to lack of coordination between Mr. Sengoku and DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa. Mr. Sengoku originally wanted 32 DPJ Diet members for the unit. Since many freshmen Diet members were included, Mr. Ozawa objected. Now only seven DPJ Diet members will work in the unit.

The unit will utilize the knowhow of the nonprofit think tank Japan Initiative, experts outside the government, and local government workers deemed as having no conflicting interests. It will examine about 200 of the government's 3,000 projects. With so few DPJ Diet members in the unit, though, the setup may face difficulty in completing budget compilation in time.

Since each project has some utility and benefits some parties, those working in the unit will have to show convincingly why slashed projects were considered wasteful or unnecessary.

The scenario to appear Wednesday would have been unthinkable in the days of Liberal Democratic Party rule. In a Tokyo gym, the unit's members, in the presence of senior vice ministers or parliamentary secretaries of ministries, will categorize projects as "unnecessary," "to be entrusted to the private sector," "to be implemented after a review" or "to be implemented." Some 300 people will be let into the gym to see the work, whose proceedings will be streamed onto the Internet.

If the unit eliminates wasteful projects that would otherwise have been accepted in the days of LDP rule, the government will be able to claim an achievement. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Mr. Sengoku must exercise strong leadership in making deep and rational cuts in the budget requests.