TOKYO - JAPAN'S powerful lower house on Tuesday approved an extra budget to fight the recession, including US$22 billion dollars in cash handouts, despite objections, including by some inside the ruling party.
With opposition lawmakers boycotting or voting against the package, Prime Minister Taro Aso's coalition passed the 4.8 trillion yen (S$80 billion) extra budget, the second round of supplementary funding for the year until March.
The chamber sent the budget, which exceeds the first extra budget of 1.81 trillion yen, to the opposition-controlled upper house. But the budget is sure to come into force as the lower chamber can override the upper house.
The budget is intended to fund two trillion yen in cash handouts to the public along with a job-creation plan and other economic measures as part of a stimulus package unveiled in October.
Mr Aso said that the cash handouts were needed to boost the world's second largest economy, where companies are slashing tens of thousands of jobs as overseas demand dries up for cars, electronics and other exports.
But opinion polls show that most of the public believes that the budget - averaging 12,000 yen a person - would do little to help the economy.
Earlier in the day, Mr Yoshimi Watanabe, a senior lower house lawmaker, defected from Mr Aso's Liberal Democratic Party in part due to his fears that the cash handouts would worsen Japan's already severe public debt. -- AFP
