The Cabinet's plan to use road-related tax revenues for general expenditures ran into strong opposition Wednesday from members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which may force Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to revise his key fiscal reform.
Two-thirds of some 60 members who gathered at the LDP's headquarters to listen to the proposal by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki expressed opposition to the Cabinet's plan to begin making legal changes in fiscal 2008 to allow revenues from road-related taxes to be used for general expenditures. At present, such revenues can only be used for road construction.
One of Abe's budget priorities is to cap spending on roads in the face of a ballooning public debt.