Over the past month or more, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has told the nation time and again that he is determined to fight forces opposed to change. Now he is coming to the point where he must show he means what he says. The immediate challenge is to flesh out his vision of "structural reform with no sacred cows."
That slogan moved a step closer to reality last week when a blue-ribbon government advisory panel released a draft policy package concerning economic and fiscal management and structural reform. The package was put together by a task force headed by Economics Minister Heizo Takenaka and private members of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy.
The proposed policy guidelines call for a broad range of reforms. These include liquidating bad bank debts, creating a recycling-oriented society, redistributing tax revenues set aside for public-works projects, revamping the social-security system, cutting central-government subsidies to local governments and achieving a "primary" budget balance through restricted debt issues.