LET'S AT LEAST GO POSTAL:

Koizumi resumes reform drive in Diet policy speech (REIJI YOSHIDA, 9/27/05, Japan Times)

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi relaunched his reform offensive Monday, vowing to "boldly scale down" government by privatizing the postal services, cutting personnel costs and reforming state-backed financial institutions.

However, in his policy speech to the special Diet session, he offered neither numerical targets nor a timetable to guide his renewed pledge for small government. Instead, he focused on his plan to privatize the giant state-run mail, postal savings and insurance institution. He began by repeating his vow to slash the number of government workers.

"I will review their salary structures and set a net-reduction target for the number of state government workers," Koizumi said during his address to the Diet. "I will boldly scale down the size of the government by implementing structural reforms like these."

Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party won big in the Sept. 11 general election by campaigning on the theme of reform. In the wake of their stinging defeat, the opposition parties are also now attacking "inefficient" government workers and services and calling for restructuring.

Koizumi also touched on diplomacy, merely repeating earlier stated polices and offering no new strategies toward Iraq and North Korea.

Due to the limited agenda, the 11-minute speech turned out to be Koizumi's shortest since taking office in April 2001 and the second-shortest in postwar Japan, according to one of his deputies.

Not that reform of the postal system isn't a good thing, but if it's the only reform that comes out of all this it will hardly be enough to change Japan's prospects much.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 27, 2005 7:07 AM