Revised Budget Bill Resubmitted

The leading coalition, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, submitted a revised version of FY 2025 budget bill to the Diet. Although those two parties reduced 343.7 billion yen from the budget, accepting requests from the opposition parties, the total amount maintains the record high beyond 115 trillion yen. 

While it included some requests from Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin-no Kai) and the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) to the revised budget, Shigeru Ishiba administration turned little attention to demands of the biggest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ). The revised budget bill indicates the distance between the leading parties and each opposition powers.

 

It is the first time in these twenty-nine years for the parties in the Diet resubmit an annual budget bill, which had once been formulated by the Ministry of Finance. There has been no example for these seventy years that the Diet parties reduce the amount of budget. This is an apparent consequence for Ishiba administration having lost a simple majority in the House of Representatives which has a greater power in approving the budget than the Upper House.

 

To get approval on the bill from Ishin, the leading coalition added 106.4 billion yen of spending for supporting high school tuition. To attract the DPP, the administration added around 250 billion yen for raising threshold for imposing income tax from 1.03 million yen to 1.6 million yen for low-income family. However, the DPP has not decided whether it would vote for the budget bill, being frustrated with the shortage of additional spendings.

 

It also included a part of request from the CDPJ to maintain governmental support for expensive medical treatment. But the amount of spending for the policy was only 5.5 billion yen. The difference of amount showed the administration’s stance toward the opposition parties.

 

To compensate the additional spendings, the leading parties cut some spendings from the original budget. Not only reducing the reserve for unexpected events like natural disaster, they also cut the fund for development of COVID vaccines. Some funds earmarked by lawmakers were also cut. The revision revealed that some funds could be questioned on their necessity.

 

Ishiba administration has reached a phase in which it can ask approval of the opposition parties on a budget bill. However, it is still unclear how many opposition parties would approve the revised budget.

 

The opposition parties are also frustrated with delay of discussion over the slush fund scandal in the LDP. The budget will not pass the Lower House by March 2nd, the deadline for automatic passage of budget bill by the end of March. Ishiba administration still struggles for handling the minority government without any hope for political stability.

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