LDP Eyeing Large-Scale Extra Budget after General Election

Jiji Press

11:26 JST, October 7, 2024

Tokyo (Jiji Press)—A Japanese ruling party official on Sunday showed a plan for the government to compile after the upcoming general election a large-scale supplementary budget for fiscal 2024 featuring funding for measures to cope with rising prices.

In a television program, Itsunori Onodera, policy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party, said that the party aims to have the envisioned extra budget enacted by the end of December.

Onodera said: “After winning a public mandate (through the general election), we will speedily compile a supplementary budget (for the fiscal year ending next March) so that relief money will be provided by year-end. We will draw up a large-scale supplementary budget.”

Meanwhile, Kazuhiko Shigetoku, policy head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said in the TV program that the government first should compile a supplementary budget for helping people and communities afflicted by the torrential rain in September in the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, which was heavily damaged by the 7.6-magnitude Jan. 1 earthquake.

Onodera rebutted, saying that the government can take necessary measures using its reserve funds.

The general election for the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, is slated for Oct. 27.