{"id":46724,"date":"2026-06-24T21:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/46724\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T21:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:19:16","slug":"despite-lower-house-dominance-takaichi-puts-emphasis-on-cooperation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/46724\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Lower House dominance, Takaichi puts emphasis on cooperation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi emphasized cooperation with opposition parties on Tuesday, calling for their help with passing the fiscal 2026 budget and realizing a tentative consumption tax cut, despite her coalition having overwhelming dominance in the Lower House.<\/p>\n<p>With a two-thirds majority, the Liberal Democratic Party\u2019s coalition with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) firmly controls the Lower House but lacks a majority in the Upper House. With promises to deal with the opposition politely, Takaichi is seeking their assistance in carrying out her signature policies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo avoid disrupting people\u2019s lives, I intend to ask the cooperation of the opposition parties for swift deliberations, with the aim of passing the budget and other bills that need to be enacted within the current fiscal year,\u201d which concludes at the end of March, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Takaichi was responding to questions from Centrist Reform Alliance leader Junya Ogawa, who expressed concern that there would not be enough time for proper debates on the budget.<\/p>\n<p>Due to the Feb. 8 general election, there is now much less time than usual for parliament to debate and pass the budget. This has raised concerns that the budget might not be passed ahead of the April 1 start of the new fiscal year, a situation that would require the passing of a small provisional budget covering only basic services until the full one is approved.<\/p>\n<p>Takaichi also aims to have a nonpartisan panel \u2014 consisting of ruling and opposition party members as well as experts \u2014 debate the details of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2026\/02\/19\/japan\/politics\/takaichi-consumption-tax\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a proposed abolishment of the 8% consumption tax on grocery items<\/a> for two years, a tentative measure until a refundable tax credit system can be established.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile recognizing that the consumption tax is a crucial source of funding for social security, we will reach out to opposition members who support the implementation of the tax credit with benefits,\u201d Takaichi said. \u201cThe government and the ruling parties will proceed with discussions with opposition parties and experts before submitting legislation in the parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The panel is expected to look at how to implement a tax reform that would provide tax credits along with benefits. The measure is envisioned to be a combination of a tax deduction and a direct cash benefit, and is designed to help low- and middle-income families deal with inflation.<\/p>\n<p>But abolishing the consumption tax on food and beverages would mean a loss of crucial tax revenue \u2014 around \u00a55 trillion ($32 billion) a year. Concerns and criticism from the opposition camp, and even some in the ruling party, have emerged over how the two-year loss of revenue would be covered.<\/p>\n<p>Citing discussions the LDP had with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP),&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi emphasized cooperation with opposition parties on Tuesday, calling for their help with passing the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[704,234,177,179,15393,236,180,178,358,26574],"class_list":["post-46724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-cra","tag-diet","tag-japans-politics","tag-japanese-politics","tag-junya-ogawa","tag-ldp","tag-politics","tag-politics-of-japan","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-shunichi-suzuki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}