EDITORIAL: Battle over road funding

After raging for four long months, the bitter partisan battle over the gasoline and other vehicle-related taxes earmarked for road construction is now reaching its final stage.

During an Upper House committee session Friday, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda grumbled about the way main opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) has responded to his proposal to scrap the long-standing road-funding system. "Since I proposed at the end of March to transfer the earmarked road funds to the general revenue account, I have eagerly waited for one and a half months for Minshuto to agree to talks over the idea and propose amendments," he said in connection with government plans to extend the program for 10 more years.

His remarks came just before the bill was voted down by the committee, which was controlled by lawmakers from the opposition camp. The bill is expected to be rejected by the chamber's plenary session May 12. The ruling coalition led by Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party intends to enact the bill by using its two-thirds majority in the Lower House to override the Upper House veto. With his querulous words, Fukuda may have been indicating that he is actually uncomfortable about ramming the legislation through. The bill clearly contradicts Fukuda's promise. While he has vowed to do away with the system to wall off these road tax revenues at the end of the current fiscal year and mingle the money with general revenue in the next fiscal year, the bill aims to keep the program alive for another decade.

The easiest and most logical way to make the bill consistent with Fukuda's plan would have been a revision to ensure that the measure will expire in one year. Some lawmakers in the LDP and its junior coalition partner, New Komeito, had sought this change.

The government and the ruling coalition are solely responsible for the politically awkward act of bulldozing the bill through the Diet without such an amendment. Fukuda's attempt to put the blame on Minshuto is unacceptable. The ruling camp could have proposed a revision to the bill. At the committee session, Fukuda stressed that prefectures and municipalities would be in trouble if central government spending on roads is blocked. Indeed, state subsidies amounting to some 700 billion yen for local road projects financed by the earmarked tax receipts would be stalled unless the bill is passed. That would put local governments in a bind.

If so, the ruling camp should have made serious overtures of compromise to the opposition bloc. It could have separated the road subsidies from the bill to secure funds for them through independent legislation, for instance, or offered other measures to transfer a portion of the central government revenues to local treasuries. It is true that Minshuto is currently not keen to make political compromises because of its confrontational stance toward the government under its strategy focused on forcing a dissolution of the Lower House for a snap election. But Fukuda should have trotted out a succession of shots at persuading the opposition party into talks for a deal. But he stuck to an inflexible strategy aimed at keeping the bill intact.

He had good reasons for avoiding any step that could tick off the so-called "road tribe," those LDP politicians serving the interests of the road-building industry. And he probably didn't want to break with a legislative tradition: the government usually doesn't amend a bill after submitting it to the Diet.

Instead of making serious efforts to strike a deal with Minshuto, the Fukuda government opted to wait for 60 days after the bill was sent to the Upper House so that it could use the ruling coalition's supermajority in the Lower House to enact it under a constitutional provision.

According to a recent Asahi Shimbun poll, the government's tactics doesn't go down well with voters, who apparently regard them as an arrogant abuse of the ruling camp's strength in the Lower House. The poll found 54 percent of the respondents critical of the ruling coalition's move to restore the gasoline tax surcharges that expired at the end of March by using a two-thirds majority in the Lower House. Only 29 percent supported the action. As for the planned railroading of the bill to extend the road-funding system, 59 percent voiced opposition, while 28 percent showed support.

The poll findings indicate the public is not sold on Fukuda's argument for the move. The government has promised a formal Cabinet endorsement of Fukuda's pledge. But it is doubtful whether that will help win public support for this legislative action.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 10(IHT/Asahi: May 12,2008)