Japan Faces Backlash Over Pension Scandal

Japan Faces Backlash Over Pension Scandal

TOKYO (AP) - It's been one of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's toughest challenges since taking office three years ago: how to convince a graying nation to pay more but get less from their government pensions to keep the system from going bankrupt.

That became an even tougher sell this week, after a third of Koizumi's Cabinet members acknowledged they had not paid their pension premiums. Some, it turned out, hadn't paid for years.

The revelations, triggered by a political showdown with Japan's main opposition party, could prove a major embarrassment for an administration that has put state pension reform at the top of its legislative agenda ahead of a national election three months from now.

"People in this country have had enough of being taken for idiots," the nationally circulated Mainichi newspaper said in an editorial. "Nobody's going to trust lawmakers like these when they talk about the need for reform."

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