Japan should increase government spending to prevent the nation's first recession in seven years from deepening, said Sadakazu Tanigaki, an advocate of fiscal restraint when he was finance minister from 2003 to 2005.

"Japan isn't in a position where we can just keep cutting spending," Tanigaki, 63, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, said in an interview Thursday in Tokyo.

"We shouldn't throw in the towel on balancing the budget by 2011, but it's becoming increasingly difficult," he said.