Digest

Prime Minister Hashimoto understands the necessity of restructuring the government's finances. He is striving hard to find ways to reduced the fiscal deficit.
But the best path to financial reformation is not easy to discover.
The financial world insists that treasury loans and investments be abolished. In addition, financiers are demanding that government restrictions on market competition be abolished, but such reformation would have no appreciable political effects.

In the political world,a leadership struggle has developed among the coalition parties. At the same time, bureaucrats are putting up strong resistance to the tageted reductions of annual government expenditures, since such reductions threaten their own jobs.

The government managed to assemble a uniform budget for the 1998 term, which includes a 5% reduction in public business expenditures, and defence expenditures down to a mere one trillion yen.
But strong resistance to this budget is predicted to come from "zoku giin" -- members of the national assembly who have ties to certain industries - as soon as specific expenditures items come up for consideration.

In the face of all these cross-currents and counter-currents. Prime Minister Hashimoto can only proceed gradually, promoting financial reformation in general and carefully addressing in the interests of each of the various industries, politicians, and
government officials.