July 28 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese government ministers lambasted the opposition’s election platform, saying the party is promising wasteful spending that would damage the country’s already deteriorating fiscal condition.

“The nation’s finances may collapse” should the Democratic Party of Japan gain power and implement the pledges, Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said at a press conference in Tokyo today. Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said the DPJ’s policy program released yesterday “smells of pork-barrel spending.”

The DPJ, which has never governed Japan, is leading in polls ahead of next month’s lower-house election. The party said yesterday it will cut gasoline taxes by 2.5 trillion yen ($26 billion), make public high school free, and spend 5.5 trillion yen a year on child support.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is trying to convince voters that the DPJ isn’t fit to govern, said Hiroaki Muto, a senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “All the LDP can do is criticize its rival or wait for it to trip itself up,” Muto said.

Japan’s public debt swelled to the largest in the industrialized world under the LDP, which has governed for all but 10 months in the past half-century.

Economy Minister Hayashi called on the opposition to give “specific details” on how it will pay for its pledges. The DPJ says its programs can be funded by cutting public works projects and seizing money kept in special accounts by government agencies.

Throwing Money Around

“The DPJ said we were throwing money around with our cash-handout measure,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, referring to a program of giving people at least 12,000 yen each this year in one-off payments to stimulate the economy. “But the DPJ is throwing around even more.”

Families will get 13,000 yen a month for each child younger than 15 in the year beginning April 2010, and 26,000 yen from the following year, the DPJ said. The party plans to cut the corporate tax for small and midsized companies to 11 percent from 18 percent while providing 100,000 yen a month for job-seekers who are enrolled in a training program.

The promises are “just like fly fishing” to lure voters for the Aug. 30 election, Finance Minister Yosano said.

The DPJ also seeks to rein in the power of Japan’s bureaucracy. It said it will send 100 politicians into ministries, abolish regular meetings of top bureaucrats, and concentrate policy-making at the cabinet level.

Yosano said the move would be unproductive because officials would have to spend time dealing with people who lack experience or expertise.

To contact the reporters on this story: Keiko Ujikane in Tokyo at kujikane@bloomberg.net; Toru Fujioka in Tokyo at tfujioka1@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: July 28, 2009 01:14 EDT