- Feb 12, 2007
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Japan's debt levels now stand at twice their annual GDP. Their economy has been moribund for a couple of decades as massive government spending has swamped the private sector.
Now, they are trying to do something about it: a form of internet theater in which government bureaucrats are forced to publicly justify each item in their budgets.
The public is horrified. And sadly, as politics go, much of this will end up being Kabuki Theater with most of the budgets remaining in place.
(Contrast this Transparency with the legislative processes of our current government which result in bills that nobody has read, and the complete avoidance of drafting a budget. We're on our way to Japan style debt levels if we don't get our spending under control.)
Seeking to bring its spiraling debt under control, Japan has undertaken an unlikely exercise: lawmakers are forcing bureaucrats to defend their budgets at public hearings and are slashing wanton spending.
The hearings, streamed live on the Internet, are part of an effort by the eight-month-old government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to tackle the country’s public debt, which has mushroomed to twice the size of Japan’s $5 trillion economy after years of profligate spending.
(snip)
The target of the most recent hearings, which began Friday, is Japan’s web of quasi-government agencies and public corporations — nonprofits that draw some 3.4 trillion yen ($36 billion) in annual public funds, but operate with little public scrutiny. Critics have long argued that these organizations, many of which offer cushy executive jobs to retired public officials, epitomize the wasteful spending that has driven Japan’s public debt to dangerous levels.
The daily testimony by cowering bureaucrats, covered extensively in local media, has given the Japanese their first-ever detailed look at state spending. So far, viewers have looked on in disbelief over the apparent absurdity of some of the government spending.
In one example scrutinized on Tuesday, the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, which is government financed, spent 130 million yen ($1.4 million) last year on a 3-D movie theater used to show footage of scenery from the countryside.
(snip)
At the end of the hourlong hearing, all financing for the dome’s upkeep was canceled and the organization was urged to sell the facility off to salvage some of the construction cost.
“Budgets have always been drafted behind closed doors, with nothing to underpin how much should be spent or why,” said Hideo Fukui, a professor of law and economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “Until now, nobody knew how unscrupulous the spending was.” ...
Japan Forces Bureaucrats to Defend Budgets, Live Online - NYTimes.com
Now, they are trying to do something about it: a form of internet theater in which government bureaucrats are forced to publicly justify each item in their budgets.
The public is horrified. And sadly, as politics go, much of this will end up being Kabuki Theater with most of the budgets remaining in place.
(Contrast this Transparency with the legislative processes of our current government which result in bills that nobody has read, and the complete avoidance of drafting a budget. We're on our way to Japan style debt levels if we don't get our spending under control.)
Seeking to bring its spiraling debt under control, Japan has undertaken an unlikely exercise: lawmakers are forcing bureaucrats to defend their budgets at public hearings and are slashing wanton spending.
The hearings, streamed live on the Internet, are part of an effort by the eight-month-old government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to tackle the country’s public debt, which has mushroomed to twice the size of Japan’s $5 trillion economy after years of profligate spending.
(snip)
The target of the most recent hearings, which began Friday, is Japan’s web of quasi-government agencies and public corporations — nonprofits that draw some 3.4 trillion yen ($36 billion) in annual public funds, but operate with little public scrutiny. Critics have long argued that these organizations, many of which offer cushy executive jobs to retired public officials, epitomize the wasteful spending that has driven Japan’s public debt to dangerous levels.
The daily testimony by cowering bureaucrats, covered extensively in local media, has given the Japanese their first-ever detailed look at state spending. So far, viewers have looked on in disbelief over the apparent absurdity of some of the government spending.
In one example scrutinized on Tuesday, the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, which is government financed, spent 130 million yen ($1.4 million) last year on a 3-D movie theater used to show footage of scenery from the countryside.
(snip)
At the end of the hourlong hearing, all financing for the dome’s upkeep was canceled and the organization was urged to sell the facility off to salvage some of the construction cost.
“Budgets have always been drafted behind closed doors, with nothing to underpin how much should be spent or why,” said Hideo Fukui, a professor of law and economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “Until now, nobody knew how unscrupulous the spending was.” ...
Japan Forces Bureaucrats to Defend Budgets, Live Online - NYTimes.com
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