Japan and the United States agreed earlier this month to cut the Japanese share of the cost of maintaining U.S. forces here -- special host-nation support, which is often called the "sympathy budget." The cut, about 3.3 billion yen a year, is actually a drop in the bucket -- 1.3 percent of the approximately 260 billion yen (contract value) that Japan is committed to paying in fiscal 2000.

The sympathy budget, which is based on a special bilateral agreement that expires next March, was implemented for the first time in 1978 to help ease budget pressure on the U.S. government, which was then plagued by large fiscal deficits. This special host-nation spending does not represent a Japanese obligation within the Status of Forces Agreement. With the U.S. now enjoying a huge budget surplus, there is no convincing reason why Japan should continue to spend such a large amount of taxpayer money for U.S. forces.

The cost-cutting agreement involves utilities expenses for U.S. military housing -- light, fuel and water bills that normally should be paid by the U.S. Cutting a small fraction of these payments -- which are not covered by the status agreement -- comes across as a makeshift compromise that will likely come under strong criticism from the Japanese public, particularly in view of the nation's worsening fiscal problems.