Japan Budget Bill Passes as Govt, Ruling Bloc Win Over Opposition Parties

By Akihisa Ota and Kota Ifuku / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

21:00 JST, December 12, 2025

The government and ruling parties secured enough support to pass a supplementary budget bill for fiscal 2025 in the House of Representatives by actively incorporating proposals from Komeito and the Democratic Party for the People.

Lacking a majority in the House of Councillors, the ruling bloc of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party sought to divide opposition parties and effectively ensured passage of this top-priority supplementary budget bill during the current Diet session.

After the bill was passed in the lower house plenary session Thursday, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi met DPFP leader Yuichiro Tamaki with a smile in the Diet building. “Thank you so much,” Takaichi said, to which Tamaki replied, “Why don’t we take a photo?” They then posed together.

To win support for the bill, Takaichi took the plunge and decided to abolish the provisional gasoline tax surcharge within this year, a key DPFP key policy.

Regarding Komeito’s request for emergency support for households with children, the government accommodated it by including an additional child allowance of ¥20,000 per child. Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito told reporters Thursday, “Our proposals, such as payments to those in need, were incorporated” giving a reason for supporting the bill.

A senior LDP lawmaker said: “The DPFP’s support alone would secure a majority in the upper house. To build broader consensus, however, we also coordinated [on the bill] in fields where the government can respond affirmatively to Komeito in Diet deliberations.”

Takaichi has instructed officials to actively incorporate opposition proposals.

“We have cleared one hurdle but will respond carefully during upper house deliberations from Friday,” a source close to Takaichi said.

CDPJ fails to roast Cabinet

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, even under its new leadership, failed to take the Takaichi Cabinet down at this crucial moment of the extraordinary Diet session.

The largest opposition party ended up failing to make a significant impact, after all the effort of raising concern about the scale of the supplementary budget and then jointly submitting a motion with Komeito to revise the budget.

CDPJ leader Yoshihiko Noda told reporters after the passage of the budget bill that his party opposed the bill because of its “excessive scale and lack of urgency.”

Meanwhile, Noda praised the joint motion with Komeito as “a major first step toward uniting reform-minded forces” and expressed hope for cooperation with Komeito in next year’s ordinary Diet session.

Even so, the unity of opposition parties envisioned by the CDPJ was not achieved when Komeito and the DPFP both voted in favor of the bill.

Ahead of the government, the CDPJ has compiled economic measures including a ¥30,000 per person payment to middle- and low-income households. The aim was to create a clear contrast with Takaichi, who opposes such payments. However, the government’s final proposal ended up including a benefit plan for children. This forced Noda to admit that government policies “align with ours in some areas.”