「簗農相辞任の陰で、農業と消費税」スクラップ・タイムス【2026.10.17 OA】

The Resignation of Agriculture Minister Yana and the Lingering Questions

Agriculture Minister Yana was forced out of office. Remarks in which he appeared to take credit for sharply cutting road budgets—combined with suspected violations of the Public Offices Election Act related to campaign activities—made his departure effectively a dismissal. The Mainichi Shimbun of October 16 ran the headline "Yana Affair Far From Closed—Impact on Consumption Tax Deliberations Inevitable," making clear that resignation alone would not draw a line under the matter.

What catches Kashima's attention is that Yana's actual involvement in any budget cuts has never been explained. If he did push the cuts, why? If he did not, why did he tell supporters he had used his political clout to reduce the budget? Politicians who boast about roads and bridges they helped build are common enough, Kashima notes, but claiming credit for slashing a budget is a new pattern. He called on the Diet to keep pressing until the facts are out.

The 'Side Effect' of a Food-Tax Cut on Small Farmers

The government plans to lower the consumption tax on food from 8% to 1% starting next April. Producers might seem to benefit, but the Shinshu Mainichi Shimbun of October 9 reported a problem under the headline "Tax Cut, Side Effects, Budget Bloat."

Small-scale farmers whose annual sales fall below the taxable threshold are exempt from remitting consumption tax. When food tax rates fall, however, the consumption-tax-equivalent amount that was embedded in their selling prices disappears as income. At the same time, the consumption tax those farmers pay on inputs—fertilizer, pesticides—stays exactly where it is. The result is an inversion: less money coming in, the same money going out.

Grants to Compensate, but No Funding Source

To offset this side effect, the government is considering annual grants of roughly ¥200 billion to farmers and others. But the Shinshu Mainichi Shimbun underlines the contradiction: this is "a budget that would be unnecessary without the consumption tax cut." A policy meant to ease the burden ends up requiring additional spending to repair the damage it creates.

When household-level benefits are factored in, the total cost comes to approximately ¥10 trillion over two years—and the funding source remains unidentified. A Yomiuri Shimbun editorial on October 10, headlined "Without Showing the Funding Source, the Debate Cannot Reach a Conclusion," called the government's approach of touting benefits while concealing costs "nothing but populism." The Asahi Shimbun on the same day called the plan "half-baked," and reported that a government official had described it as "leverage in negotiations with the opposition"—even as the details of income-based benefit payments remain undecided.

Questions About Takaichi's Commitment

Kashima also questions Prime Minister Takaichi's depth of commitment to the consumption tax cut. Up until earlier this year, multiple opposition parties had been pushing various forms of a reduction; Takaichi then declared it her "cherished goal," successfully neutralizing it as a political issue. Since then, however, no concrete explanation of the funding or policy design has followed.

If the commitment were genuine, Kashima argues, the budget would go into the substance of the policy rather than promotional videos, and voters would receive a persuasive explanation. He says he cannot see any real depth—any "thickness"—to the insistence that the tax must be cut.

Accountability and the Weight of Words

When Kashima reviewed the transcript of the press conference at the Prime Minister's Office in September, he found that Takaichi had explained her ministerial appointments by saying she chose people who "hold their seats even in difficult elections, as in the House of Representatives election two years ago." That was cited as a reason for appointing Yana—yet Yana lost his single-member-district seat in this February's lower house election. The "strong in elections" argument rested entirely on a victory from two years prior.

Kashima suspects that Yana, as a member of the former Abe faction and a lawmaker implicated in the political slush-fund scandal, was a key figure whose appointment would set a precedent that "everything is acceptable again." Now that this pivotal figure has been forced out, Takaichi cannot sidestep responsibility for the appointment. The phrase "cherished goal" used to describe the consumption tax cut, and the "strong in elections" justification offered for Yana's appointment, both exist on the public record. Kashima concluded that how much accountability Takaichi takes for those words is precisely what the Diet must now press her on.