The fiscal 2012 budget, at more than ¥90 trillion the biggest in history, was finally enacted by the Diet on Thursday as an earlier vote in the Lower House took priority after the opposition-controlled Upper House shot it down earlier in the day.
The Constitution gives priority to the Lower House when the two chambers are split over the budget, but getting this year's spending plan through the Diet will provide little comfort to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who still faces numerous political difficulties.
The fate of a special bill to issue debt-covering bonds, which is needed to finance as much as 40 percent of the budget, is still hanging as the Upper House is capable of killing it at will. The Constitution gives superiority to the Lower House only in passing budgets, ratifying treaties and electing prime ministers.