Japan Diet Extra Budget: Updated Dec. 20, 2024.

 

Japan enacts 13.9 trillion yen extra budget for economic package

Article Source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241217/p2g/00m/0bu/039000c

Ideas:

It seems Japan has a new economic package as its economy doesn't seem to be doing much recently, as it is up and down frequently lately.

The new economic package could be a political ploy to gain support for the current administration that doesn't has a majority the diet.

In relation to the disaster reconstruction costs, many residents in area where the earthquake hit on the west coast of Japan, say recovery is taking a long time.

And of course inflation relief, again, is just like last summer or many time before as the Japanese government just keeps coming with new inflation relief packages, without much affect on the economy.

Increasing the tax-free annual income threshold is a good idea as it will help part-time workers, who are not all college students but working women with children too.

The Liberal Democratic Party has been in power most of time Japan has been a democracy, except for a few years here or there. But now it might need all the help it can get to stay in power.

Once again while needed this economic package seems like the other economic packages aimed to do the exact thing, which helps Japanese households and hopefully stimulate consumer spending in Japan.

A one-off cash handouts for low-income households is needed but how long will it last, one month, two months etc.

As stated before Japan needs some kind of trade agreement with oil producing countries, as Japan is a resource-poor country and has to import much of what is needs including all of its energy needs.

And again, the news from the Noto Peninsula area suggest the recovery efforts are taking way too long, as its going on a year now.

It seems the Japanese government is not too concerned about its fiscal health and it just keeps spending as needed. But that is now common among many advanced countries these days.

Most of the Japanese government debt is owned by Japan, meaning its internal and not external like it was with Greece in 2010.

Like always whenever a initial government spending plan is proposed it never come out the same after all the main actors work on it. 

And this time the same too, as the initial plan was amended to make sure all will agree on the plan, such as addition of increased disaster relief funds and probably some other cuts that were not important at this time.

Free education, for everyone might new for some, but in the US 1-12 grades are free for public schools, but not for private school. In South Korea, its free for elementary schools but not 100 percent free for the other grades. 

To get that one passed it could take some doing as it might increase the budgets of local governments and the overall Japanese government too.

Have a nice day!