Press Conference by Prime Minister Ishiba regarding the Passage of the Draft Budget for Fiscal Year 2025 by the House of Representatives

(On Prime Minister Ishiba's reaction to the draft budget for fiscal 2025 finally being passed by the House of Representatives after being amended, making it the first draft budget in 29 years to be amended before its passage, and on his determination to have it enacted by the end of the fiscal year)

As you mentioned, this was indeed the first time to have the original draft budget amended by the Diet since 1996. That makes it the first time for that to happen in 28 or 29 years. It ended up taking an extremely unusual form, but I believe the time we spent deliberating it was particularly long and the deliberations on it were especially thoroughgoing. We succeeded in passing the draft budget today by incorporating the opinions of a wide range of opposition party members. Both the time invested and the content of our deliberations were entirely in keeping with a "deliberative Diet."

We were able to achieve this through the assistance of a large number of people there in the Diet, notably the committee directors in the Diet, the committee members, and House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Jun Azumi, who was in charge of the proceedings.

This achievement was also thanks to the great efforts made by the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP's) Secretary-General and the Chair of the LDP's Policy Research Council, as well as the members of that group, the office of the Secretary-General, all the Policy Research Council members, and many others in both the ruling and opposition parties. After all, the last time this happened was 1996 and almost no one remembers that, so there were some times where it all came down to trial and error and it was much like groping around in the dark.

Going forward, we will make use of the lessons we learned in this process and, giving due consideration to the upcoming deliberations in the House of Councillors, I intend for us as the Government to engage in debate in the House of Councillors with further humility and sincerity so that we become a more deliberative Diet and the content of the budget enjoys the approval of the Japanese people.

It would be very good if all of that results in the early enactment of the budget, but that depends on how hard we work, so I will make my very best efforts.

(On how Prime Minister Ishiba would respond to comments that, as a result of incorporating requests from various opposition parties in order to gain their approval of the draft budget, revisions were made that will lower taxes and increase government expenditures, leading to a slackening of fiscal discipline)

I imagine that those kinds of comments have been made. At the same time, insofar as there are citizens who are hoping for the lower taxes you mentioned or various other revisions in the draft budget, I think that when considering how to achieve those things alongside fiscal discipline, we need to undertake a careful review from both the expenditures side and the revenue side. Consequently, it is not the case that various revisions being made will necessarily lead to a loosening of fiscal discipline; rather, the fact that such concerns exist is precisely why we must make further efforts to review both our expenditures and our revenues. The Government will stay highly mindful of this and work to ensure that this situation does not automatically lead to a slackening of fiscal discipline.