Hatayama's Budget For Japan

The Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) ruled Japan from the mid 1950's until August 30, 2009 when the Democratic Party of Japan(DPJ) was voted into office. In the last 20 years of its rule the LDP has led Japan to near ruin. It was their economic policies that allowed the Bubble Economy and when it collapsed, the party out of fear did nothing. Which in turn brought about 10 years of rescission and almost zero economic growth. The economy severely contracted because the Japanese afraid for their own economic well being started saving even larger amounts of money and sending even less.
Successive LDP governments in stupid and vain attempts to revive the economy decided that public works projects were just the ticket. So, using shady bidding practices contracts were handed out like so much Christmas candy to greedy construction companies who then proceeded to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects that benefited no one but the LDP and the construction companies. Two perfect examples are the Rainbow bridge which goes from Tokyo to Yokohama and the Aqua Line which goes from Chiba to Yokohama because both were so expensive to construct the tolls had to reflect this. Thus they were so high that both bridges were underused based upon there actual carrying capacity. That was until out desperation the LDP lower the tolls on weekends and holidays to ￥1000.
When it became apparent that most of Japans banks were near collapse the government finally stepped in and allowed some banks to fail out right and others to merge thereby consolidating Japans banking sector to just a few major banks.
Almost everything the LDP did seemed benefit the LDP and its major corporate backers.
Like when the Japan Post was privatized helping to enrich its major stock holders while leaving those they were supposed to serve the public with little or nothing, These are just a few of the messes created by the LDP's incompetence that must be cleaned up by the DPJ.

The DPJ in its budget has proposed that fees paid by students to attend public high schools at a rate of $3,000 a year should be born by the government thus making attending high school in Japan free for the first time. They will also provide assistance to those attending private schools based upon income. Further they want to give families a child allowance with no income restrictions on who can receive them. Fees for doctors will be raised for the first time in 20 years to help alleviate the current shortage of doctors. As for those public works projects? A number of them have either been put on hold or scrapped altogether so that the money allocated for these projects can be returned to the general fund to used for social safety programs the government as also asked that all unspent funds allocated to the various Ministries be returned so that they can be used for the same purpose to help the average citizen.
Will it that's a question yet to answered but given the disaster handed to them by the LDP those who support or voted for change by electing the DPJ should be patient and give their polices a chance to work.