The Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition has given up on passing the budget before the new fiscal year begins on April 1, according to senior lawmakers.
Until the record-high ¥96.34 trillion budget is enacted, the Abe administration will formulate a stopgap budget to cover government spending, the lawmakers said Tuesday.
The budget is expected to pass through the Lower House as early as March 13, leaving only 12 weekdays for the Upper House to deliberate.
Theoretically the LDP-Komeito alliance could still get the budget passed before the March 31 end of the current fiscal year, but they are expected to focus instead on short-term legislation that would prevent an immediate negative impact on daily life, the lawmakers said.
One of the lawmakers said the budget could be passed in the second week of April, before the unified local elections.
The budget compilation project was delayed when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called a general election for Dec. 14 to seek a public mandate for his plan to postpone a second consumption tax hike to 2017 from 2015.