「英語のお勉強」
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announced his government's first budget on Christmas, and what a gift it was. Instead of making the hard choices Japan needs to revive its flagging economy, Mr. Hatoyama opted for more welfarism.


That's not what he calls it of course; the prime minister Friday dubbed the record 92 trillion yen ($1 trillion) plan as a measure to "protect people's lives," hearkening back to his party's campaign manifesto. For the first time ever, over half of the government's core spending will go to social-welfare programs, such as cash payments to parents, subsidies for farmers and free high-school education. Meanwhile, public-works projects were cut by 18%.


The Democratic Party of Japan-led coalition is selling the package as a more responsible redistribution of wealth from the old Liberal Democratic Party days, when budgets were skewed more toward supporting favored industries. Cutting public works is certainly a good start; Japan doesn't need more roads and bridges to nowhere.


But fiscally, it's hard to see how Friday's budget passes the laugh test. For the first time since World War II, the budget will be funded more by bond issuance than tax receipts, sending debt-to-GDP spiraling toward 200%. Mr. Hatoyama is touting the fact that he's capped debt issuance at a record 44 trillion yen as a victory; but it's still 11 trillion more than initially budgeted. Given the government's rosy economic outlook, that number could eventually rise as tax receipts fall short of Tokyo's projections.


The budget also does little to target spending to parties who might need it more than others. The \13,000 monthly allowance for parents, for instance, isn't income-tested. Nor is it clear that increasing cash handouts will generate economic activity when the country is in the grip of deflation, and it makes more sense to hoard capital than to invest it.


The best "protection" for Japan's citizens isn't to shower them with money that the government can't afford, but to give them the opportunity to improve their circumstances through dint of their own hard work. These kinds of initiatives don't necessarily cost money; for instance, Tokyo could make it easier to start a business, drop protectionist trade and investment barriers, or give more freedom to rural landowners to use their property as they see fit.


This is certainly the kind of vision that the Japanese public would support. They rallied behind former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi when he promised to attack entrenched corruption and make Japan a more competitive place to do business. In contrast, as the Hatoyama government's populism has become more evident, its public-approval ratings have dropped to under 50%, from 71% upon taking office in September.


The Hatoyama government is promising to avoid a double-dip recession, and given Friday's budget, that might technically be true: Government can pay people to dig holes in the ground, and that counts as investment in the GDP equation. But that doesn't make such spending healthy, or sustainable. Welfarism has never made a country rich, and Japan is no exception—no matter what you call it.

http://jp.wsj.com/Japan/Politics/node_17370/(language)/eng-US