Ballooning budget requests by ministries for fiscal 2015 total more than ¥100 trillion for the first time, raising serious doubts about the Abe administration's commitment to fiscal discipline.
Government debt has swelled beyond ¥1,000 trillion, making Japan's fiscal health the worst among industrialized economies. It would be unconscionable if the lavish budget requests were made because ministries were taking advantage of political pressures for more public spending to generate voter support ahead of the unified series of local elections next spring. Lawmakers and bureaucrats need to share a sense of crisis and substantially trim the amount by the time the fiscal 2015 draft budget is compiled by yearend.
General-account budget requests surged to a record ¥107.5 trillion, or about ¥6 trillion higher than the ¥95.9 trillion initially set aside for fiscal 2014. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set aside a special quota of nearly ¥4 trillion on measures aimed at halting the nation's population decline and shoring up regional economies outside major urban areas. The government, meanwhile, did not put a cap on budgetary requests since fiscal 2015 tax revenues could not be projected pending Abe's decision later this year on whether to go ahead with the second stage of the consumption tax hike next year.