Read my lips: no new taxes! Just old ones raised.
Civil service workers are taking a pay cut to help pay off Tohoku earthquake and tsunami debt, the government is discussing raising pension payments while cutting benefits, Tokyo Electric Power Co. is raising electricity rates, and now Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda hopes to raise the consumption tax. While the current retirees, beneficiaries of Japan's postwar rapid growth era, receive pension payments, young people who make much less and find it hard to get jobs, are funding their elders.
I suggest that, instead of raising the consumption tax, that we think outside the box and raise tax money in other ways. If you look hard enough, you'll find there is plenty of money sitting around just waiting to be hoed into.
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