Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara pledged Tuesday to rebuild the capital's finances by breaking taboos and taking drastic steps, including trimming the number of civil servants and streamlining its elaborate social welfare programs, and gave a stern "no" to relocating the capital.
"I will carry out, despite whatever difficulties lay ahead of me, Tokyo's fiscal reconstruction. I am determined to make the capital the nation's beacon," Ishihara said in his policy speech Tuesday at the opening of the regular metropolitan assembly session.
The session, scheduled to end July 14, is expected to be the first full-scale confrontation between the maverick governor and the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito-controlled assembly.
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