Motoo Funada, a former director general of the Economic Planning Agency and a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, abstained from the lower house vote on the consumption tax cut bill on the 6th, saying he could not see the relief reaching shoppers. "Even if the tax is cut, I cannot expect it to reliably bring down food prices. It is very regrettable, but I abstained," he told reporters.
The bill, a priority for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, passed the House of Representatives. Other LDP lawmakers left the chamber before the vote, including former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Yuko Obuchi.
A party line that will not hold
Funada's refusal is the clearest sign yet that the LDP cannot keep its members behind a single economic message. The party holds the government and the lower house majority, yet one of its most senior figures would not vote for the centerpiece of the prime minister's tax program.
The abstention also puts a specific complaint on the record: that a cut in the consumption tax — the levy charged on goods and services at the point of sale — may not show up in what households pay for food. Funada did not say what would work instead.