Doing the Arithmetic on Downsizing the National Civil Service

This post began as an email to the business consultant referred to in the main text and the host of the lunch. I’m sharing it with you because I think it’s relevant to understanding the implications of the domestic policy agenda of the DPJ, something I generally haven’t taken much time to go over on my blog.

What are the implications of downsizing the civil service by 30% and cutting personnel costs for the remainder by another 30%? It’s a suggestion that I heard from a relatively well-known management consultant—and presumably making the rounds of business circles—over lunch?

As of FY2008, there were 590,993 national civil servants accounting for 5.3252 trillion yen in personnel costs. A business-as-usual scenario will not change these figures significantly. So, a 30%-by-30% cut saves you about 2.7 trillion yen, which is comparable to the 2.5 trillion yen required to finance the increase (1/3, up from 1/2) in government subsidies to the basic public pension system, which in turn is roughly equal to the revenue that can be raised by a 1 percentage-point hike of the consumption tax rate*. The message? Soak the bureaucracy and you can finance pension reform without a consumption tax hike, a most desirable message politically speaking. But is it doable?

Under normal circumstances, roughly 5% of national civil servants (excluding Self-Defense personnel, but let’s assume that their attrition rate is more or less the same) leave the civil service each year. So, by simple attrition, the civil service can be trimmed by 30% in 7 years. But there’s a catch or two. Of the roughly 590,000 national civil servants, about 140,000, or 1/4th, are tax officials, police officers, coast guard personnel, etc., people vital to our personal and national security, people whom we do not commonly associate with the slovenly paper-pushing ways of the civil service and would be immediately noticed if their ranks were thinned in the form of fewer police officers on the beat, fewer guards at the Imperial Palace grounds, etc., etc. (Although fewer taxmen on the job might be a welcome turn of events by Keidanren members.) A further 235,000, or 25ths, comprise the military personnel of the Self-Defense Forces. Although our soldiers are usually less visible than, say, police officers, a significantly lower level of defense alert would have to be accepted—not that such a decision would be out of the question—in order to make a 30% cut in their ranks. That’s 375,000, or close to 2/3rds of the total that require a serious rethinking of our personal and national security priorities before they can be considered for major downsizing. Yet to leave them untouched means that you would have to take 30 percentage points out of the remaining 36 percentage points to make the numbers work.

The other 30% cut in personnel costs likely derives from a comparison of the average annual wage of the employees of all businesses with 10 or more employees—4.524 million yen (FY2004)—and the administrative personnel among the national civil servants (full-time employees excluding tax officials, police, coast guard, the SDF military, etc.)—6.295 million yen (FY2004). But note that the workforce for the basis of the 4.524 million-yen figure includes contract workers, temps, part-time workers and the like. Corrected for these differences and business size, this government(!)-sponsored study claims that the average annual wage of national civil servants and that of the general workforce are more or less equal. Now it could be argued that the national civil service should share the same fate, salary- and benefit-wise, as the rest of the population. But the argument must be made to stick as well with regard with the civil servants who are directly responsible for our personal and national security, and the fiscal well-being of our national government.

This is clearly a difficult, politically unpalatable task. Perhaps that is why the DPJ is willing to settle for a modest(!) goal of a 20% overall cut, theoretically achievable with simple attrition plus an absolute hiring and wage freeze over a 3-year period**, and even then hedging its bets by claiming that much of the load and by implication some of the personnel can be shifted to local governments…which passes the buck without really solving the problem.

* It is also roughly equal to the sum of the budgetary costs of eliminating tolls on most highways (debt payments 1.4 trillion + maintenance costs 0.16 trillion) and abolishing the gasoline tax surcharge (1.24 trillion yen). A trillion here, a trillion there, and soon you’re talking about real money…

*Under normal conditions, roughly 5% of civil servants excluding Self-Defense personnel leave the civil service. So, assuming SDF personnel leave the military at the same rate, simple attrition plus an absolute hiring and wage freeze should be enough to achieve the DPJ goal of cutting personnel costs by 20% in three years—other things being the same. (Note that attrition occurs disproportionately at the older and therefore more highly paid end of the wage scale.)

Ozawa Resigns, Clearing the Way for DPJ Victory

Ichiro Ozawa held a press conference at 5:00PM today to announce that he would be resigning as DPJ President, opening the way for a scandal-free successor to lead his party in the next Lower House election. He gave no indication as to whom he would favor as his successor, but made it clear that he was not leaving politics and would be seeing to it that the DPJ would be running the election his way. He did not say if he would be contesting his Iwate seat, or any other (say, as rumored, New Komeito leader Hiroaki Ota’s Tokyo 12th District) for that matter, but that is trivial.

Two names, Katsuya Okada and Yukio Hatoyama, both former DPJ leaders, have been put forth as favorites to succeed Ozawa. Right now, my money is on Okada, and not just because he’s class of ’76 METI. He’s seen as a clean—if boring policy-wonk—presence, a welcome change from Ozawa. And as I have mentioned before, he has spent the two years crisscrossing the nation earning street cred with the local-rank-and-file, a very important thing for the long-term health of the DPJ, currently over-reliant on labor union muscle. I’m sure Ozawa prefers Hatoyama, another scandal-free figure who has until fairly late in the game served him as attack dog non pariel. Moreover, Hatoyama basically bankrolled the pre-merger DPJ and is on good terms with every group in the current DPJ. However, he has repeatedly averred that he would be going down with the captain if that turns out to be the case, and it’s difficult right now to see the overly serious Hatoyama going back on his words. Of course all this could change if the DPJ decides on an election, rather than a white-smoke-from-the-chimney consensus process. But that’s trivial. The important thing is that this removes the greatest obstacle for independents/floaters to voting for the DPJ.

One other important political implication is that this makes it easier for a post-electoral LDP breakaway group to join a DPJ-led coalition. This has policy implications as well, since it means that the DPJ may not need the Social Democrats (old-school socialists) or the People’s New Party (who want to turn the clock back on Post Office reform as well as public works expenditures) to hold a stable majority in the Upper House. I’ll see if I have more to say on this point, as well as the time to do so. In the meantime, for those of you who can read Japanese, this is the text of Ozawa’s Sherman speech, and this is the press Q&A.

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Sorry, folks. I don’t think I’ll have the time today to respond to the comments on earlier posts. (Gotta take care of dinner.) I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, okay?

Meandering from Opinion Polls to the State of the Economy

The latest Yomiuri poll (May 17-18) has come out, as the excitement whipped up by the Late-Term Elderly Medical Care Insurance rollout and the gasoline tax reinstatement has worn off and talk has turned to trimming some of its rougher edges or reverting to the old insurance system (the opposition); [ and divvying the gas money between roads and other objectives or simply getting rid of the surcharge and making up the difference for local governments from the national budget (the opposition)]. The results show a slow but steady slide in public esteem for the Fukuda administration and the LDP-Komeito coalition. The changes appear to be within or near the margin of error. But when all the numbers trend in the same direction, they’re harder to explain away.

If you really want to get a good view of the Fukuda/coalition dip-DPJ lift right after the gasoline tax surcharge reinstatement and the subsequent fallback, there’s no better place to go than the weekly Fuji TV polls and compare the numbers for the past four weeks. I hope you’re not a coalition fan though, because the DPJ has consistently been beating the LDP-DPJ numbers for some time. The silver lining if you are is that your trend-lines appear to have steadied since February despite taking more major hits in the form of the insurance rollout and the gasoline tax surcharge reinstatement.

Where diplomacy is concerned, the poll also confirms that Hu Jintao’s visit had little effect on the Japanese public—no surprise, what with no visible breakthrough on the East China Sea gas fields and the 2millon-dollar price tag on the giant panda “gifts (according to unofficial reports—neither side has actually mentioned it). Looking ahead, beyond the polls, there’s no downside for the Prime Minister in the July G-8 Summit in Hokkaido. On the other hand, there’s not much upside to what has become over the years something of a giant photo-op. (Are they going to dress up in kimonos? Better than the clown suits that Jiang Zeming gave his colleagues. ) The Fukuda administration and the ruling coalition should not expect anything more than a small, momentary blip in popularity. Be thankful, instead, that botching the LTEMCI rollout and reinstating the unpopular gas tax surcharge have done limited damage.

Which brings us to the real political issue—the fiscal reform package, coming to us this autumn. You know that I have grave doubts on this about both sides. Now Ross approaches this from a different angle. He believes that an LDP loss, any LDP loss, will break the stranglehold that vested interests have on policy making, and that Ichiro Ozawa knows this and is willing to do anything to make it happen. The trillion-yen price tags on the DPJ promises are worth it.

I dunno, Ross, here’s hoping: You’re right, I’m wrong.

PS: And yes, there is the economy. There’s precious little that the Fukuda administration can do on its own in the event of a serious economic downturn. And if it’s really serious about fiscal reform , it will come up with a big tax bill. But I don’t think that the Japanese public trusts the DPJ with economic management either.

Japanese Establishment Launches Bottom up Political Reform, Seeks Diet Member Takers; Call Back in February

This is what I was talking about here, at the end, off-topic. It turned out to be a little less overwhelming than I had hoped for, but the jury is out.

The Sunday inauguration of the *Chīki, Seikatsusya* Kiten de Nihon wo Sentaku(Sentaku) suru Kokumin Rengō (「地域・生活者起点で日本を洗濯（選択）する国民連合」. People’s Union to Launder/Choose Japan from the Standpoint of the Regions and the People; my translation) or Sentaku for short, was duly noted in all the major dailies; Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri, and most notably Sankei, whose website also carried articles here, here, and here.

The Sentaku prospectus decries the political passivity on the part of the public and the reliance on the central bureaucracy and seeks to launch a thoroughgoing reform in the way we live and work by way of a new bottom-up, people’s rights movement.

The promoters of Sentaku, however, are not some wild-eyed radicals or woolly-headed New Agers. For Sentaku has been launched by an elite group of five academics including Masataka Kitagawa, the highly regarded ex-governor of Mie Prefecture and Tsuyoshi Sasaki, former President of Tokyo University; two business leaders, four incumbent governors including Hideo Higashikokubaru, comedian turned politician; one mayor; one prefectural assembly chairman; one moderate trade union leader; and one ex-Vice Minister of METI and former head of the Dentsu Institute. Mr. Kitagawa heads the 15-man (no women!) team, which is calling on Diet members who sympathize with their objectives to establish a parallel, nonpartisan Diet caucus that would work with Sentaku to develop a common understanding and make sure that the next Lower House general election will be “a truly historical election for the sentaku (in the “choose” sense) between [alternative] administrations”.

Sentaku is a direct outgrowth of the Atarashī Nihon wo Tsukuru Kokuminkaigi (The People’s Conference to Create a New Japan; my translation), which also goes by the name of “21 Seiki Rinchō” (21st Century Extraordinary Advisory Council for the Promotion of Administrative Reform; my translation). Although 21 Seiki Rinchō is not a government advisory council like its namesake**, it marshals an impressive selection from the A-list of the Japanese establishment, including the incumbent Keidanren Chairman (formerly Toyota’s Okuda, now Canon’s Mitarai) as the head of its 23-member Board of Special Advisors, which brings together an impressive array of business leaders, academics, a former head of the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations, and Nobuo Ishihara, Prime Minister Koizumi’s bureaucratic majordomo. It is headed by four “Joint Representatives”, four “Deputy Representatives”, two “Chief Examiners”, 152 “Managing Council Members” and 28 members of a “Joint Conference of Governors and Mayors of Cities, Towns and Villages”. The major media groups (those with major dailies) are well-represented in the Managing Council. All in all, it is a moderate***, centrist, establishment movement that, together with its two earlier incarnations since 1992, has sought to influence the political changes that have shaken but only partially transformed the post-1955 regime. In fact, the 15-member promotion group draws most of its members from the 21 Seiki Rinchō leadership, with the only two non-21 Seiki Rinchō additions being the newly elected Governor Higashikokubaru and the Mie Prefecture Assembly President.

Why the need for a new organization? Many other nonpartisan efforts to influence the political process (the Shintō Seiji Renmei; or Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership, comes to mind) establish parallel nonpartisan Diet member caucuses to further their cause. But 21 Seiki Rinchō and its predecessors have never done so, preferring to work through ad hoc exchanges as well as proposals addressed to the Diet and the general public. Another difference is the inclusion of a Prefecture Assemblyman in the list of Sentaku promoters. In fact, 21 Seiki Rinchō appears to have studiously avoided any institutionalized involvement with the legislative branch at any level. In contrast, 21 Seiki Rinchō has a Joint Conference of Governors and Mayors.

It may have been possible to alter the direction of 21 Seiki Rinchō instead of starting a new organization. But organizations take on lives of their own, and it could have required too much effort to change a practice that had continued since the early 90s. Perhaps just as important, a milestone event must have been considered desirable in drawing the attention of the media and calling on Diet members to sign on. And in the interests of nonpartisanship, it may have been considered unavoidable to let the Keidanren Chairman off the hook, in view of the Keidanren’s close association with the LDP****.

Will this actually have an effect on the political process? The jury is out. The group seeks to have the Diet member group up and running in February, but nothing in the media gives even a hint as to the extent of nemawashi among potential participants. If it manages to bring together a substantial number of Diet members from both sides by then, then it will thrive. If not, it will flop. Media coverage will no doubt play a role*****. In this respect, the absence of any media representation in the promoting group is a little disappointing. I’ll file a report when I know for sure. I’ll let you know if there are significant new developments in the meantime as well.

* This is one of the most difficult things to translate that I’ve ever come across. First, there is the awful pun with “sentaku 洗濯（選択）”, which I translated literally as Launder/Choose. They’ve decided to call it “Sentaku” ( せんたく in hiragana) for short. More illuminating is “seikatsusha 生活者”, which means roughly “people as individuals in their daily roles as family, workplace and community members”. In fact “seikatsu 生活” itself is difficult to describe without resorting to the same lengthy explanation. I copped out, writing “people” and putting it in italics to order to indicate that I did not mean “kokumin 国民 (which is commonly translated as “the people” but strictly speaking excludes non-citizens)” or 人々 (literally, “people”). This is not as trivial as you might think, since words by themselves shape and alter our thoughts. More specifically, it presents a problem in understanding the Japanese political environment, now that the LDP and DPJ are placing top priority on 生活 and 生活者 － forget about constitutional amendment, forget about the war on terror, etc. － and littering their policy platforms and speeches with those words. It also highlights the difference between American and Japanese politicalspeak (or more broadly social and cultural mindsets), since “individual” would usually be the word of choice in an American setting, when the word seikatsusya is used in Japanese.

Note that the translation of Prime Minister Fukuda’s January 18th policy speech also goes with “the people”. “The people” is used profusely in the translation for kokumin as well, although these are two quite distinct concepts.

** The self-appropriated nickname channels previous administrative reforms, no doubt in particular the Second Rinchō (1981-86), which propelled the ascetic Keidanren Chairman Toshimitsu Dokō to national hero status and played a significant role in Yasuhiro Nakasone gaining the Prime Minister’s seat (1982-87).

*** Tarō Yayama, one of Prime Minister Koizumi’s closer advisors, is the only recognizable figure in 21 Seiki Rinchō that is associated with the political right.

**** Keidanren members do give some money to the DPJ, but the amount is dwarfed by their contributions to the DPJLDP. In fact, one of the reasons the DPJ is hesitant about an early general election is the need for time to replenish their coffers after the July House election.

***** Tsuneo Watanabe is not involved with 21 Seiki Rinchō, though the Yomiuri group itself is well-represented. Perhaps this has something to do with the relatively small Yomiuri coverage, on the left upper corner of page two in its hardcopy version. 21 Seiki Rinchō, with its emphasis on change through political choice and the need for a bottom-up approach to national reform, does not look conducive to an LDP-DPJ handshake any time soon.

Five Bills Face March 31 Deadline in Twisted Diet; BOJ Governorship Also on the Line

I looked into this to satisfy my own curiosity, but I thought that people who cannot read Japanese but are into the facts might be interested. I’d be happy to do a more detailed analysis, but hey, there’s only so much I can do without getting paid.

There will be five bills on the table that face deadlines. By the end of March, the main battlefront will be the gasoline taxes. The fight over the replacement for BOJ Governor should also be over by then. Let’s look at them one-by-one. Bill to:

1. Amend Income Tax Act and Others: The extension of national special tax measures is the main purpose of this amendment. The “temporary” supercharge on the volatile oil tax, set to expire at the end (March 31) of the fiscal year is the main event in this Diet session. The local road tax, collected as a national tax and distributed to local governments, also expires as of March 31. These two taxes, collected at the point of purchase on gasoline sales, comprise what I have been calling the gasoline tax. In the future, I will refer to them in the plural, as “gasoline taxes”, so as not to confuse them with the singular volatile oil tax.

2. Amend Local Tax Act and Others: Similar to 1, for prefectural and municipal taxes. The “temporary” surcharge on the automobile acquisition tax, collected and used by prefectural governments and also distributed to municipalities, expires as of March 31. The “temporary” surcharge on the automobile weight tax, collected as a national tax and also distributed to municipalities, expires as of April 30.

3. Amend Customs Tariff Act and others: Here, the key is the Temporary Customs Tariff Measures Act, under which the government reduces rates on much of its imports. The temporary reduction on beef expires as of March 31.

4. Adopt Special Measures Act on the Issuance of Public Bonds: Each year, the Diet passes a law to authorize the government to issue a set amount of so-called akaji kokusai, or national bonds to cover the national budget deficit*.

5. Extend Extraordinary Measures Act on Financing Funds for the Improvement of Fisheries Processing Industry Facilities: It authorizes government-backed, long-term, low-interest financing for… the improvement of fisheries processing industry facilities, what else. It expires as of March 31.

Let’s deal with the easy ones first. No.5 looks like a gimmie. Nobody wants to annoy the fishing lobby, though they could wait a few weeks for a Lower House override if it comes to that. No. 3 is an even easier call, since nobody wants to piss off, in no particular order: all consumers, all developing countries, the United States, and Australia, the world’s largest kangaroo meat exporter, to name just a few.

No.4 will pass eventually; the opposition cannot deny the short-term reality that without the authorization, the government will grind to a stop at some point during the fiscal year. The opposition will look highly irresponsible if it lets the bill linger in the Upper House into the new fiscal year before the Lower House passes it with the override, likely at some point in April. The DPJ is apparently willing to give a pass to a bill that will be submitted as part of the FY2007 supplementary budget package** to authorize local governments to issue deficit bonds to cover FY 2008 revenue shortfalls, and I see the same thing happening with regard to the FY 2008 national deficit bonds. Along the way, the opposition will surely criticize the ruling coalition for, say, “the long years of fiscal mismanagement that created this mess”. I think that this particular debate will be more like a wash, since the ruling coalition can also score some points by demanding that the DPJ account for the multitrillion coverage for its public pension funding, subsidize-the-microfarmers and childcare subsidies and other proposals.

So it boils down to Nos. 1 and 2. They are a package, but it is the gasoline taxes that really matter. I expect the Fukuda Cabinet to submit a bill that is allows for a possible hiatus between April 1 and the eventual enactment of the bill in the case of the gasoline taxes, since, unlike tax benefits, they cannot be made retroactive***. If they don’t, it probably means that they are daring the DPJ to play a game of Chicken. A relatively short delay in the tax benefits will not have a serious effect on the macro-economy, since the tax benefits mostly cover capital expenditures that can be delayed. A promise at some point from the ruling coalition that it would exercise the override (and thus make the measures retroactive) should erase any concerns in the market. But the gasoline taxes revenue during the gap will be lost forever. Somewhat less important, the two technical adjustments as the tax rates go down and back up again will cause confusing at the points of sale. All this assumes that the ruling coalition will exercise the override. That, I think, is the most likely outcome, given the balance of interests that both sides must consider. However, both sides will also be driven by public opinion and media coverage, so a compromise is possible. What I don’t think is possible: a snap election before the session is up; or total ruling coalition/opposition capitulation on the gasoline taxes.

Addition: The gasoline taxes in No.1 are taxed to the producer/wholesaler at the point of sale to the retailer, not at the pump as I had erroneously assumed. Thus, the “technical” adjustments will be far smaller than I had anticipated. However, difficult pricing decisions remain at the retail level and should cause confusion at the pump, where drivers will expect instant gratification while the lower tax rates must work (or not) their way into the retail price over several weeks. The light oil transaction tax, the local (prefectural) tax that is the diesel engine equivalent of the volatile oil tax (this is an important item that I'd originally missed; I have to see the eventual bill to produce definitive lists of the included items), is taxed to the retailer (non-gasoline, non-light oil hydrocarbon fuel used in internal combustion engines is taxed to the producer/wholesaler; kerosene is specifically mentioned, but alcohol fuel should be covered here), so the time lag between tax incidence and the final sale will be much shorter. This means that a temporary adjustment is much easier for trucks and buses than for passenger automobiles. Also, expect a drop in auto sales in the coming months in anticipation of a tax reduction after March 31 and a corresponding jump after that as auto buyers rush to take advantage of what I believe will be a temporary situation. (December 19)

Something else is set to expire as of March 19. Toshihiko Fukui’s term as the Governor of the Bank of Japan is coming to an end, and he has only a marginally better chance to be reappointed than President Bush has to be elected to a third term. In the past, Toshirō Mutō, currently Deputy Governor and former MOF Vice-Minister, would be a shoo-in, but the DPJ is strongly opposed to his appointment. It requires the consent of both Houses, and there are no provisions for an override. The Cabinet could reappoint him to the BOJ Board of Directors any way － his term is up as well, but it can do that without the Diet’s consent － and name him acting Governor, but it probably wouldn’t be the same. At a minimum, it will send a negative signal about Japanese governance when the global financial market may still be in the throes of the subprime-driven crisis. With the uncertainties in the Middle East, the inhospitable climate between the US and Russia, the US Presidential election, and the potential for acts of global terrorism, a BOJ leadership that lacks firm political backing is an unpleasant plan B. Both sides will be looking at public opinion polls and media coverage for guidance here as well, as they grope towards a compromise whose outlines nobody can ascertain as of now.


* Funding for roads, dams, development loans, etc. are covered by “national construction bonds”. These expenditures do not go into the budget deficit in the first instant because they create assets. I assume that depreciating assets must be amortized, but I have to check it.

** Every fiscal year, the Cabinet submits one supplementary budget (sometimes two) budgets to take care of unforeseen matters such as additional expenditures to cover earthquake damages and additional deficit bonds to cover increased tax revenue shortfalls, as well as additional expenditures and tax relief to goose the economy.

*** Actually, I think it would be unconstitutional.

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Off topic: The media says that Masataka Kitagawa, the highly-influential former Governor of Mie Prefecture and reportedly first choice of the DPJ to challenge Shintarō Ishihara in the 2007 Tokyo gubernatorial, is getting together with businessmen, academics and other local political leaders to start a new policy study group. Could this movement be the catalyst for a true makeover of Japanese politics? If so, then it’s something that many people including me have been hoping for since the 90s, when many of the best and brightest of the establishment elite with political ambitions began to put national politics on hold and go into local politics. I’ll see if there’s more to post after they make the official announcement tomorrow, on Saturday.

Random Firings of the Synapses on the New Fukuda Cabinet, Factions, Reformist Prime Ministers and Stuff

Got a long email from Mentor, gave a shorter response. Lightly edited and excised of personal stuff, here it is:

- Yasuo Fukuda takes over from Shinzo Abe, and there's only one new face in the cabinet. Is there anything that better symbolizes the LDP? Shoichi Nakagawa could take over one year from now and, if he could stay away from the Yasukuni Shrine, I don't think we'd notice the difference.

- habatsu; or, faction: a Japanese sport, played mainly by LDP men. Most cognoscenti of the sport consider the heydays of the SanKakuDaiFuku League the Golden Age of competitive, full-contact habatsu, when the weakest teams usually had at least one superstar and a legitimate chance to win it all.

Contemporary habatsu is an intramural-recreation game. After the game is over, all the players on all the teams get together and throw a big karaoke party. What can I say, it serves a useful objective. If nothing else, it proves that man is a social animal.

The DPJ plays a more primitive, freestyle game, but the objectives seem to be converging. The DPJ players want a big fat karaoke party of their own, and are beginning to smell the fried chicken and beer.

The problem is, there's only one karaoke set, and the LDP and DPJ are now too big to fit into the one karaoke room at the same time. This, I think, is a variety of the two-party political system that allows small floaters to play both sides of the game. Let's call it, meta-habatsu.

Sorry, that's about all I can say now on habatsu. I'll see if I can come up with some meaningful thoughts on dissenters and discontents, and their effect on team cohesion.

- I've long believed that Ryutaro Hashimoto has been underrated. In terms of potential, I rank him up there with Yasuhiro Nakasone. And I'm not saying that because he came to love METI. But that's what happens when you lose. Twice. People think of Noboru Takeshita as a pol of pols. But he got the consumption tax done. Gave me hope for the entire LDP with that too.

A true reformer would have to overhaul the entire FILP from head to tail, and that means that he has to redo the Post Office thing. As for the highways – Junichiro Koizumi really botched that one; maybe he was no better than that – Mr. Fukuda has said stuff that suggests, hints, that he'll backtrack on that. Politically, it would make at least as much sense as throwing money at 90-year old small-plot farmers; as statecraft, it would leave something to be desired. But let's keep hoping.