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The story
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has marked 10 years in office. She has rolled out one childbirth and child-rearing support policy after another, and in June it was announced that Tokyo’s birth rate had risen for the first time in a decade. The generous benefits and free services made possible by the capital’s abundant tax revenue are envied by other prefectures, but there’s also persistent backlash over the idea that “only Tokyo benefits.” On 5ch, users debated the issue from multiple angles — the fairness of how the support is funded, concerns that budgets keep swelling without any real scrutiny of what the programs actually deliver, and the growing gap between child-rearing households concentrated in central Tokyo and low-income singles.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike marked 10 years in office this past August. She has continued to roll out one childbirth and child-rearing policy after another, but the benefits and free services funded by the capital’s abundant tax revenue have also drawn criticism and skepticism from governors and residents of other prefectures. We take a look at where Governor Koike’s administration stands today.
“I believe this is a result of our policies. I want to keep building on this seamlessly, so that it continues to resonate with Tokyo residents in various ways,” she said.
On June 3, when it was announced that Tokyo’s birth count had risen for the first time in a decade, Koike spoke to reporters with evident pride.
Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here
What people said
hand some money back to them too
What kind of life experience leads to
that kind of logic?
That's literally what furusato nozei (hometown tax donation program) is for
If we're keeping the current tax system as is, central Tokyo should be placed under direct national control, with most of its tax revenue redirected to infrastructure for regional hub cities
This is supposed to be the national government's job, you know?
There are almost no state-run daycare or elementary education facilities
What an idiot
This is about fighting the falling birthrate.
As a share of GDP, Japan's still dead last among developed countries — and this is the most critical situation of all
South Korea has the worst birthrate, not Japan
Oh wait, is it not a developed country?
Other countries just have immigrants having the kids for them
and everyone else can get out
Is that really okay?
A uniform nationwide policy just isn't realistic
It's a nuisance for Tokyo residents too.
People in the regions should just raise their kids in the regions, right?
These tax thieves never learn
Once you slap the "child-rearing support" label on it, it's hard to complain
And under that get-out-of-jail-free card, it'll turn into a vested interest without anyone ever checking what's actually inside the programs
Exactly, it's just like UNICEF or those Africa charity drives — it's just an easy way to collect money
Truly garbage
Just scrap the Children and Families Agency and that'd be easy to achieve
Criticizes Trump's handout schemes
But gives Koike's handouts a pass
Way too convenient
Child-rearing couples, if say one spouse's family home is in Chiba, Saitama, or Kanagawa,
tend to move out there instead
What do you do?
– Put it into savings for the kid
– Spend it on the kid's expenses
– Have a BBQ
Even when the support money comes in, it just disappears into rent and utility bills — same as when insurance payouts came in
my premium just got raised because my grade went up, all I could do was laugh
That's just how it is in Tokyo
Child-rearing support is basically designed to reduce the burden on parents, so I think a BBQ is fine too
even the child allowance itself is paid out to the parents anyway
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Tokyo is one of the few local governments that doesn’t receive local allocation tax grants, making it one of the rare municipalities able to fund child-rearing support entirely out of its own tax revenue. This gap in fiscal strength makes the disparity with other prefectures highly visible, feeding a structural backlash of “it’s not fair that only Tokyo gets this.” Within the thread, opinions split between those questioning the fairness of it and those who argued it’s only natural for Tokyo to spend the tax revenue it earns. Another recurring point was transparency in how the funds are used — commenters repeatedly raised concerns that, under the banner of “child-rearing support,” budgets keep growing without the substance of the programs ever being properly scrutinized. At the same time, central Tokyo is also grappling with its own polarization, between an influx of child-rearing households and a population of low-income singles, and the original Mainichi Shimbun article this piece is based on doesn’t dig deeply into which groups are actually benefiting from the support. It’s worth noting that a simple argument about redistributing tax revenue isn’t, on its own, a meaningful measure of Tokyo’s over-concentration or of how effective birthrate policy is overall.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “10 Years of Governor Koike: ¥15 Trillion for Child-Rearing Support, Envy and Backlash from Other Prefectures.”
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