hashimoto faced a crushing defeat in the 1998 upper house election, and resigned. the next year, the government focused, instead, on selling bonds of about $760 billion worth to pull the country out of the recession. every administration since then has issued more and more bonds. experts say politicians believe hiking the consumption tax would cost them at the polls. as a result, japan's debt climbed year after year until it was roughly $9.9 trillion in 2009. the financial meltdown in greece provided a wake-up call. japanese leaders saw how quickly investors could start selling the bonds of countries with huge debt. talking about increasing the consumption tax was no longer taboo. by 2012, japan's debt had already topped roughly 1,000 trillion yen or $10 trillion. senior citizens made up one quarter of the population. social security costs continued to climb. when prime minister abe took power, he decided to lessen the impact of the tax increase by linking it with a $50 billion stimulus package. >> translator: implementing the stimulus package could pull the countr