Report Urges Tax Reform, Deregulation For Japan

The final report of the U.S.-Japan 21st Century Committee -- a panel of business executives, government officials, and academics that's been meeting off and on for the past two years about economic, education, and national security issues -- is fundamentally undistinguished. There's a lot of boilerplate about shared values and importance of the bilateral relationship. Only the last two pages of the 121-page report deal with the critical matter of rebuilding Japan's economy. And in unusually blunt language the panel urges Japan to enact permanent tax reform that includes lower maximum marginal rates on business profits; to stop pumping money into failed financial institutions; and to move along with economic deregulation.