Vote on Comprehensive Social Security and Tax Reform Bills

It is commendable that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's leadership and bipartisan efforts have brought the process of the comprehensive reform of social security and taxation systems, one of the government's most important tasks, thus far. The government and ruling party members have soundly studied this issue since last year by taking necessary steps and ruling lawmakers should keep that in their minds and act accordingly.

Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks

Mexico and Canada have declared their intentions to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks and been accepted by the negotiating member countries. While there must be various reasons why Japan has not officially announced its intention to participate in the talks, the government needs to take advantage of every possible opportunity to promptly declare its intention to join the negotiations. It is necessary to do so in time for the December TPP talks when Mexico and Canada will join. Given that the U.S. Congress has to be notified no later than 90 days before the start of negotiations to obtain the approval of the U.S., the announcement needs to be made by the end of August.