Word: budgets
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Owing to budget crises, many states are now having trouble affording to keep so many people locked up. Some states are cutting incarceration expenses by consolidating prisons; some are trying to slash prison-food and health-care costs. But real savings come only when you reduce prison populations, and so some states - including California, Colorado and Kentucky - have begun releasing inmates early. "The pressure in state legislatures all over the country is to bring down the populations, because we just can't afford the level of punishment that we've had the last 20 years," says Joan Petersilia, a criminologist...
...Budget Under Control In mid-September, the DPJ will take over officially, with the Diet's election of Hatoyama as Prime Minister and the appointment of ministers. That leaves 100 days for the new administration to draft a budget for the next fiscal year that doesn't increase the national deficit - now at 180% of GDP, the highest ratio among developed countries - but still provides funds for costly election-year promises. The deadline is all the more pressing because Japan's still anemic economic recovery could falter without the steady infusion of government spending...
...stab at stimulus includes annual cash handouts to families with children of $3,350 per child, free high school education, the elimination of highway tolls and a four-year freeze on Japan's 5% consumption tax. A balanced budget is out of the question for now, but the DPJ says it can help pay for additional programs by cutting $97.8 billion in "wasteful" government outlays...
...Balance the Bureaucracy Tokyo's bureaucrats have long called the shots on everything from budget formulation to foreign policy. The bureaucracy can be virtually impervious to change partly because its members are not accountable to elected officials - there's no personnel overhaul with a change in administration. The DPJ has vowed to implement some checks and balances by expanding the power of the Prime Minister's office and the Cabinet. But it's a delicate job that could easily go sour. (See pictures of Japan in 1989 and Japan...
...Cabinet - and away from ministry bureaucrats - the DPJ will also replace the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, an advisory group to the Prime Minister's office set up in 2001, with a National Strategy Bureau (NSB) reporting to the Prime Minister. The NSB will be key in budget and diplomatic-policy formulation. The DPJ also wants to improve government transparency and crack down on conflicts of interest by eliminating amakudari, or "descent from heaven," a system whereby retiring bureaucrats are posted to plush private-sector jobs. "This is a new way of doing business in this country," says Curtis...