Economist Magazine Reads Fukuda The Last Rites

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Economist: Fukuda's botched repairs
WHENEVER Japan's next general election takes place, the odds of Yasuo Fukuda, the hapless prime minister, leading his party into it have dwindled. On April 27th, the 71-year-old was presented with a crushing by-election defeat for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) at the hands of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), for a vacant seat in the lower house of the Diet...Three days later, Mr Fukuda, using the ruling coalition's supermajority in the lower house, courted deeper unpopularity by reinstating a petrol tax that had lapsed a month earlier after the DPJ-controlled upper house opposed its renewal. Mr Fukuda's approval ratings are now even lower in some polls than the low point of his predecessor, Shinzo Abe...more...

[dimwit]

The gas tax is a death nail, especially when they have talked holding another vote to allow the money to go back into road construction rather than general revenue. In general, the principle of using specific taxes for specific purposes is one that I feel governments need to get back to, however the lack of any checks and balance in Japan has cost them any crediblity they might have had.

In general, for many Japanese, I think this is the first time many of them have connected the real cost of pork barrel policies with money coming out of their pockets. The DPJ would be foolish to let this one go.