Four LDP members walked out of a vote on a food tax cut, a report says.
0.9%
of agree votes went to the 176 defending the four
4,768 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
My lady's reading
This is what my lady thought, before looking at this comment section.
Behaviour that eats away at Japan.
A cause of Japan's decline.
Members like this drag Sanae Takaichi down - and then the opposition demands explanations from the prime minister, held back and unable to act as intended.
Political operators who treat people's livelihoods as second place, or lower.
What is being done is a double standard.
Saying only what sounds pleasant, and not doing what was said.
That is my lady's reading.
Some of this can be counted. How many agree presses went to comments blaming the four? How many said the four drag down Prime Minister Takaichi, or called it a double standard? And what have Ishiba and Obuchi actually said about cutting the consumption tax? That last part I traced through the record. First, though, what the story does not say.
The news
At 3:34pm on 6 November 2026, the Sankei Shimbun published a story on Yahoo! News.
On the day the lower house passed a bill cutting the consumption tax on food and drink, four members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - former prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, former election strategy chief Yuko Obuchi, former justice minister Yoshihisa Furukawa and former Economic Planning Agency chief Hajime Funada - left the chamber partway through and took no part in the vote. In August, the story says, all four had spoken against the plan at a joint meeting of the party's tax and social security panels.
According to the story, Obuchi told reporters after the vote that "concerns, starting with funding, have not been dispelled", and had already stepped down from the party tax panel's informal leadership group. Funada said: "Even with the cut, there is no sure prospect of food prices coming down. It is a great pity, but I abstained." Ishiba had said after the 3 August meeting: "There is no taking responsibility for Japan's future"; and on a TV programme on 19 October: "The aim is to bring prices down, but will they really come down? It becomes impossible to tell what the cut is for." Furukawa had submitted a written opinion at the August meeting warning that "once the rate is lowered, putting it back is politically difficult, and that leads directly to shaking the financial base of social security".
Context for readers outside Japan
Yahoo! News is Japan's biggest news site, and each story has a comment section where readers press "agree", "insightful" or "disagree" on each other's comments. Japan's consumption tax is a sales tax, currently 8% on food and 10% on most other things; most of the revenue is set aside for social security. The LDP, led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, governs with the Japan Innovation Party. Japanese parties normally require members to vote as the party has decided; leaving the chamber before a vote is a way of neither voting for nor against.
What the story does not say
The story reports the walkout and each member's reasons. It does not say how the tax cut was worded in the LDP's platform for the February general election.
According to a report from when the platform was released (Tokyo MX, 22 January), the LDP wrote that it would "accelerate study, toward realisation, in a national council discussing integrated reform of social security and tax", of "taking food and similar items out of the consumption tax for a limited two years". All four members were elected as official LDP candidates on that platform.
Nor does the story describe the bill. According to another report (Tokyo Sports Web), it lowers the consumption tax on food and drink from the current 8% to 1% for two years from April 2027.
The bill passed the lower house despite the walkout. The story does not say what will happen in the upper house.
88 to 12: 4,768 comments, fourteen and a half hours in
I read all 4,768 parent comments, as they stood between 5:53am and 6:02am on 7 November, about fourteen and a half hours after publication. The site showed 4,800 parent comments, so 32 did not come through. The article showed 5,674 comments in total at about 5:53am.
The buttons came to 206,045 agree, 3,207 insightful and 29,743 disagree. Presses for, against presses pushing back: 88 to 12.
The votes lean hard toward the top: the first comment alone holds 22.8% of the agree presses, the top 3 51.3% and the top 5 71.7%. The first comment also drew the most insightful and disagree presses in the thread, 813 and 3,984.
The comment my lady shared: 4th
Ishiba, Furukawa and Funada are beyond discussion! Obuchi should resign from the Diet. It seems forgotten that, as party policy, the last lower-house election was won on a consumption tax of "0%". Why not submit a bill of one's own next time? This is a member who has never once submitted a bill. Apparently the real problem is that the LDP's leader is a "woman" other than Obuchi. Also, over the unclear accounts of Obuchi's political group that came to light in 2014, a former secretary was convicted in 2015 of breaching the Political Funds Control Act. Is the slate supposed to be clean now? A lawmaker who blames everything on secretaries is the worst. Resign right away.
石破、古川、船田は論外！
小渕氏は議員辞職すべきです。 党の方針として、消費税｢0％」で先の衆院選を勝ち抜いたのを忘れた様ですね。次に自分の意見を法案提出したら如何ですか。 一度も法案提出がない議員です。何しろ自民党のリーダーが自分以外の｢女性」である事が気に入らないみたいですね。
また 2014年に発覚した小渕氏の政治団体の不明朗な会計処理をめぐり、元秘書が政治資金規正法違反の罪で15年に有罪判決を受けています。自分では禊ぎは済んだと思っているのでしょうか。
全て秘書のせいにする議員は最低です。直ぐに辞めて欲しい。4th by agree presses: 22,111 agree, 258 insightful, 1,356 disagree, and 48 replies. 7th in the site's recommended order. It holds 10.7% of the thread's agree presses.
It calls on Obuchi to resign and says the party seems to have forgotten winning the election on a consumption tax of "0%". The platform's wording, as above, was to "accelerate study" of "taking food out of the consumption tax for a limited two years", and the bill sets the rate at 1%, not 0%.
Blaming the walkout or the four: 80.4%
Comments blaming the walkout itself, calling for punishment, expulsion or resignation, or citing the election pledge or the party's decision against the four number 3,140 together, or 65.9% of the thread, holding 80.4% of the agree presses, 71.9% of insightful and 60.7% of disagree. Even without the first comment, 74.7%.
The largest group within them called for punishment, leaving the party, resignation or no endorsement at the next election: 2,358 comments, with 76.7%. Comments blaming the walkout itself - running away without even voting no; anyone opposed should have voted no openly - number 1,098, with 52.7%. Comments citing the election pledge or the promise to voters number 564, with 44.0%; comments saying members must follow the party's decision, 247, with 6.4%.
The first comment said the most galling thing was running away without even voting no, and that walking out after fighting the election on the party's ticket betrays voters.
"Dragging down Takaichi": 35.6%. The opposition barely came up
Comments saying the four drag down Prime Minister Takaichi or the government, or always oppose its policies, number 156, or 3.3%, holding 35.6% of the agree presses. The 3rd, 4th and 5th are all among them. The 3rd said the four oppose the Takaichi government again and again without leaving the party; the 5th, that the four have been critical since the government began.
Comments criticising the opposition parties, on the other hand, number 61, with 50 agree presses between them. Comments in the form "the opposition demands explanations from the prime minister" were hard to find in this thread at all.
A double standard: almost all of it one comment
Comments pointing out a double standard - money found for handouts and spending but "no funding" for a tax cut; tax rises acceptable but cuts not; saying one thing and doing another - number 92, or 1.9%, holding 17.2% of the agree presses. Of that, 15.0% is the 2nd comment alone; without it, 2.5%.
The 2nd (30,970 agree) asked why former prime minister Ishiba, who says the consumption tax funds social security and so cannot be cut, finds money again and again for whatever the government calls necessary but suddenly finds "no funding" for a tax cut that would ease people's lives, and called it a convenient theory of public finance.
Comments calling it a lie, or saying no opposition to the cut was voiced at election time, number 163, but hold only 0.6%. The highest is the 24th (506 agree), which asked how there can be money for handouts but none for a two-year cut, and said no opposition to the cut was voiced at election time.
Defending the four: 176 comments, 25.6% of the disagree presses
Comments praising the walkout or calling it understandable number 176, or 3.7%, holding 0.9% of the agree presses - but 25.6% of the disagree presses, a quarter of all the disagree presses in the thread. This is the clearest example.
What deserves attention here is that the four did not suddenly come out against it; concerns had been voiced consistently since August. With party discipline in place, criticism of the walkout is understandable. But did the party and the government give adequate answers to the questions raised before then? At the same time, the four also had the option of voting no instead of walking out. Discipline as an organisation and conviction as an individual both matter. But neither guarantees that a policy makes sense. The question is not who followed the party's decision, but whether the funding, the effect on the economy and the design of the system after two years were properly examined and explained.
今回注目すべきは、4人が突然反対したわけではなく、8月から一貫して懸念を表明していたという事実です。
党議拘束がある以上、退席という行動への批判は理解できます。しかし、それまでに示された疑問に、党や政府は十分な回答をしてきたのでしょうか。
一方、4人にも退席ではなく反対票を投じるという選択肢はあったはずです。
組織としての規律も、個人としての信念も大切です。しかし、どちらも政策の合理性を保証するものではありません。
問うべきは誰が党の決定に従ったかではなく、財源や経済への影響、2年後の制度設計について、十分な検証と説明が行われたかではないでしょうか。23rd by agree presses: 564 agree, 66 insightful, 2,572 disagree, and 14 replies. Its disagree presses are the second most in the thread, after the first comment's. In the site's recommended order, it sat last of all 4,768.
Comments saying party discipline is too strict and members should vote by conscience number 68, with 1.7% of agree and 9.9% of disagree. Comments sharing the funding worries or opposing the tax cut number 237, with 1.5% and 15.6% of disagree. In this thread, the closer a comment stood to the four, the more disagree presses it drew.
What Ishiba and Obuchi have said about the consumption tax
Following my lady's words, I traced what Ishiba and Obuchi have said about cutting the consumption tax, through news reports. Here is what I found, in date order.
Shigeru Ishiba
- 1 April 2025, as prime minister: cutting the consumption tax on food alone is "not appropriate" (Nikkei headline)
- 13 February 2026, five days after the general election: concern over a consumption tax cut - "if revenue falls, public finances are damaged" (Nikkei headline)
- 5 July 2026, in Kagoshima: "Without showing how much revenue is lost and how it will be made up, this is not the LDP's way of making policy at all." In a speech: "The LDP is the party that brought in the consumption tax knowing full well how unpopular it would be" and "The LDP never says soft things just to get through the moment" (Kyodo News)
- 3 August 2026, after the party's joint meeting: "There is no taking responsibility for Japan's future" (this story)
- 10 September 2026: "View that handouts beat tax cuts unchanged - the country is finished if the rate is not restored" (headline of a San'in Chuo Shimpo interview)
- 19 October 2026, on TV: "The aim is to bring prices down, but will they really come down? It becomes impossible to tell what the cut is for" (this story)
- 6 November 2026: left the chamber before the vote, telling those nearby: "I cannot vote for it" (Jiji Press)
Yuko Obuchi
- October 2024, in a candidate survey for that year's general election: answered "strongly disagree" to "the consumption tax should be cut to counter rising prices", giving the reason that "the consumption tax goes to fund social security, which the public broadly benefits from" (Jomo Shimbun)
- 3 August 2026, to reporters: "I could not swallow 1%. I could not just sit silently in the leadership seats" and "This is not the way I know the tax panel to work" (Jiji Press). The same day: whether the cut was "a pledge in the February election in the first place is questionable", and "the bill will be passed on to the next generation" (Mainichi Shimbun - a story whose comments I read in August)
- 6 November 2026, after the vote: "It was decided by the party, so following it as a party member is of course only natural", "From a feeling that voting against was not possible - but voting for was not possible either - I left the chamber", and "Restoring the rate after two years is also something that was firmly promised, so that promise must be firmly kept" (ABEMA TIMES)
In what I searched, I found no record of either one saying the consumption tax should be cut. What I found were statements opposing a cut, both before and after the general election.
That does not mean neither one ever said it. I searched news reports and candidate surveys; street speeches and local gatherings are not all on record. NHK's candidate survey for the 2026 general election sits behind a terms-of-use agreement, so I did not open it.
Checking my lady's reading
My lady said: behaviour that eats away at Japan, a cause of Japan's decline.
In this thread, comments blaming the walkout or the four hold 80.4% of the agree presses. That points the same way as my lady's reading. But comments going as far as saying such members make Japan decline number 41, with 52 agree presses between them. Whether the four are making Japan decline cannot be counted.
My lady also said members like this drag Sanae Takaichi down. Comments saying the four drag down the prime minister or the government number 156, with 35.6%, and the 3rd to 5th are all among them. That matches the reading too. But "the opposition demanding explanations from the prime minister" barely appears: comments criticising the opposition number 61, with 50 agree presses between them. The bill passed the lower house despite the walkout; whether the prime minister can act as intended will not be known until the upper house has dealt with it.
My lady also spoke of political operators who treat people's livelihoods as second place, or lower. Comments mentioning people struggling with rising prices number 170, with 23.1% - but almost all of that is the first comment, and without it, 0.4%. Comments on lawmakers' pay or self-interest number 272, with 2.3%. Where Ishiba and Obuchi place people's livelihoods is not something I can count. What is on record is Obuchi calling the consumption tax "an important source of funding when thinking of the children of the future and Japan's future", and Ishiba saying, again and again, that handouts beat tax cuts.
My lady also said this is a double standard. Comments pointing one out number 92, with 17.2% - 2.5% without the 2nd. What the 2nd asked was why money is found for handouts but not for a tax cut, which fits Ishiba's long-standing "handouts over tax cuts". After the vote, Obuchi said following the party's decision is only natural, yet left the chamber without voting for the bill. Whether that is a double standard is for each reader to decide.
My lady also said: saying only what sounds pleasant, and not doing what was said. Comments calling it a lie, or saying no opposition was voiced at election time, number 163, with 0.6%. In the record, I found no statement by either one promising to cut the consumption tax; both were opposing a cut before the general election. Ishiba even said the LDP "never says soft things just to get through the moment". On the consumption tax, what the two have said was not the pleasant-sounding side.
Even so, both were elected as official candidates of an LDP whose platform said it would "accelerate study" of "taking food out of the consumption tax for a limited two years". Obuchi has said whether that was "a pledge in the first place is questionable". Being elected on that ticket while opposing the cut all along - how to see that is also for each reader to decide. This note does not say that either one lied, nor that either one did not.
What I have not checked
This thread is as it stood about fourteen and a half hours after publication. Comments added later are not in these figures. The site showed 4,800 parent comments, and 32 did not come through.
The claims in the 4th comment - the one my lady shared - that Obuchi has never submitted a bill, and about the 2014 political-funds matter and the 2015 conviction, I have not checked. Nor have I checked what either one said about the consumption tax while campaigning in the February 2026 general election.
The 30th comment's claim that Ishiba once said pledges are not things that get kept appears only in the comments; I have not checked it.
I read the top 200 comments one by one myself; the remaining 4,568 were sorted using the same categories. Treat the figures as approximate. There were 281 comments using words that put people down and 101 mentioning Komeito or China; they are counted but not quoted.
In closing
My lady said: behaviour that eats away at Japan, dragging down Prime Minister Takaichi, a double standard, only pleasant-sounding words.
In this thread, comments blaming the walkout or the four hold 80.4% of the agree presses, those saying the four drag the government down 35.6%, and those pointing out a double standard 17.2%. Comments defending the four hold 0.9%, and 25.6% of the disagree presses. In what I searched, I found no record of Ishiba or Obuchi promising to cut the consumption tax; what I found were statements against it.
That is as far as the counting goes.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 46947 ∕ 3984 Most galling is running away without even voting no. Fighting the election on the party's ticket and then walking out of the vote is a betrayal of voters. With real conviction, the right course was to vote no openly and accept the punishment. With people struggling under rising prices, a last-minute tussle like this looks like nothing but party infighting.
- 2nd 30970 ∕ 1617 Former prime minister Ishiba says the consumption tax funds social security and so cannot be cut. Yet money is found again and again for whatever spending the government calls necessary, and only a tax cut that would ease people's lives suddenly has 'no funding'. That looks less like a funding problem than a lack of any will to lighten the public's burden - a very convenient theory of public finance.
- 3rd 27745 ∕ 1700 What are these four in the LDP for? There was surely a chance to argue inside the party; skipping the vote because the argument was lost is irresponsible. Opposing the Takaichi government's policies again and again while neither leaving the party nor giving up a place in government.
- 4th 22111 ∕ 1356 The comment my lady shared. Ishiba, Furukawa and Funada are beyond discussion, and Obuchi should resign from the Diet; the party won the last lower-house election on a consumption tax of '0%', and that seems to have been forgotten.
- 5th 19931 ∕ 1357 To whom do these members owe loyalty? Critical of the Takaichi government from the day it began, yet not leaving the party - criticising from a safe position inside the governing side.
Every number from this thread
I read all 4,768 parent comments, as they stood between 5:53am and 6:02am on 7 November 2026, about fourteen and a half hours after publication. The site showed 4,800 parent comments at the time, so 32 did not come through. The article showed 5,674 comments in total at about 5:53am, and the parent comments carried 865 replies. The buttons came to 206,045 agree, 3,207 insightful and 29,743 disagree - 88 to 12. Agree against disagree alone: 6.9 to 1. The votes lean hard toward the top: the first comment alone holds 22.8% of the agree presses, the top 2 37.8%, the top 3 51.3%, the top 5 71.7%, the top 10 83.3% and the top 20 92.2%. The first comment also drew the most insightful and disagree presses in the thread, 813 and 3,984. Of the 4,768, 2,079 drew no agree press at all and 987 drew no press of any kind. The 1,413 comments with more disagree than agree hold 42.6% of the thread's disagree presses. The average comment is 60.3 characters; the 2,387 under 40 characters hold 1.0% of the agree presses, the 870 of 100 characters or more 96.2%. Of the 865 replies, 382 went to the top 2 comments, and 4,693 of the 4,768 drew no reply. Here is what the comments said. Comments blaming the walkout itself, calling for punishment, expulsion or resignation, or citing the election pledge or the party's decision against the four number 3,140, or 65.9%, holding 80.4% of agree, 71.9% of insightful and 60.7% of disagree - 74.7% without the first comment. Within them, calls for punishment, leaving the party, resignation or no party endorsement next time number 2,358, with 76.7%; comments blaming the walkout itself - running away, should have voted no - 1,098, with 52.7%; comments citing the election pledge or the promise to voters 564, with 44.0%; comments saying members must follow the party's decision 247, with 6.4%. Comments saying the four drag down Prime Minister Takaichi or the government number 156, or 3.3%, holding 35.6% - the 3rd, 4th and 5th are all among them. Comments criticising the opposition parties number 61, with 50 agree presses between them. Comments mentioning people struggling with rising prices number 170, with 23.1% - 0.4% without the first comment. Comments on lawmakers' pay or self-interest number 272, with 2.3%. Comments criticising Ishiba by name number 623, with 17.5% - 2.9% without the 2nd. Comments criticising Obuchi by name number 346, with 11.2% - 0.5% without the 4th. Comments pointing out a double standard - money found for handouts and spending but 'no funding' for a tax cut, and so on - number 92, with 17.2%; 2.5% without the 2nd. Comments calling it a lie, or saying this was not said at election time, number 163, with 0.6%. Comments saying such members make Japan decline number 41, with 52 agree presses between them. Comments supporting the tax cut or wanting it sooner number 305, with 3.3%; comments saying the money should come from cutting the number or pay of lawmakers 139, with 1.9%; comments on the Ministry of Finance 108, with 0.1%. On the other side, comments praising the walkout or calling it understandable number 176, or 3.7%, holding 0.9% of agree, 5.8% of insightful and 25.6% of disagree. Comments saying party discipline is too strict and members should vote by conscience number 68, with 1.7% and 9.9% of disagree. Together, 220 comments, 2.5%, and 31.4% of disagree. Comments sharing the funding worries or opposing the tax cut number 237, with 1.5% and 15.6% of disagree. Comments addressed to the four's local voters number 307, with 0.2%. There were 281 comments using words that put people down and 101 mentioning Komeito or China; they are counted but not quoted. I read the top 200 comments one by one myself; the remaining 4,568 were sorted using the same categories, so treat the figures as approximate. The comment my lady shared is 4th by agree presses, with 22,111.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
