The Mainichi Shimbun reports that "the passage of a second supplementary budget for fiscal 2008 has been delayed. A cash handout plan and a plan to lower expressway tolls that are included in the budget bill cannot be implemented unless the budget-related bills are enacted. If the opposition camp, including the Democratic Party of Japan, does not take a vote on the related bills in the Upper House, the ruling camp would not be able to take a second vote in the Lower House to pass them until March 14 or later. It will take some time for economic measures to create effects.

Cash handout plan

Municipal governments that will pay out cash benefits totaling 2 trillion yen with the passage of the second extra budget will begin creating lists of recipients based on their respective basic resident registers and mailing out request forms. But unless the related bills to finance the cash handout plan are enacted, municipalities would probably not start paying cash benefits.

Most municipalities are likely to wait until after the Golden Week holiday period in May. In order to begin paying out the benefits, each municipal assembly has to approve their supplementary budgets that include necessary expenses, in addition to the Diet approval of the second state supplementary budget. Municipal assemblies hold their meetings between mid-February and early March, so payments will not occur until after that. The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry says it is possible for municipalities to mail out request forms before the related bills are enacted and to begin paying out benefits within the current fiscal year as soon as the related bills are enacted. But it is unknown how many municipalities will actually start complicated administrative work to begin disbursing the cash benefits before the end of the current fiscal year. Employment

As a step to stop the deterioration of the employment situation, expenses to set up a 400-bullion-yen job-creating fund in prefectural governments is incorporated in the budget. The fund consists of two plans: an emergency job-creation project (150 billion yen) to have unemployed workers engage in public works projects temporarily, such as road repairing; and special subsidies (250 billion yen) to reinvigorate local job markets resulting in the development of indigenous projects and the stabilization of employment. In addition, a system will begin to pay 1 million yen per person to small and mid-sized companies that employed part-time workers aged between 25 and 39 for over six months.

Expectant mothers will also be able to take all 14 health checkups free of charge until fiscal 2010 and families with children aged between 3 and 5 can receive 36,000 yen in child-raring support allowance once for each child except for the first child."