The Cabinet approved a 82.18 trillion yen budget Friday for fiscal 2005 that experts say falls short of the drastic cost cuts needed to curtail spiraling public debt.
"The first thing Japan needs to cut are salaries paid out to civil servants, preferably by reducing their numbers, before we can see real inroads in fiscal reform," said Hajime Yamazaki, chief consultant at UFJ Institute Ltd.'s investment consulting department.
General expenditures, or policy-related outlays, in the fiscal 2005 budget come to 47.28 trillion yen, down 0.7 percent from the current year's preliminary budget. Social welfare costs for a graying population account for nearly half of these outlays, at 20.38 trillion yen, up 583.8 billion yen.