Split Panel Rams Through Japan Budget

TOKYO —  Scuffles broke out among lawmakers today as Japan’s ruling party forced a controversial national budget through a parliamentary committee, touching off demands for Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone’s ouster.

The 1987 budget contains measures to ease U.S. trade pressure on Japan, and Nakasone has made it known that he wants the document adopted before his trip to Washington April 29.

But a dispute over a 5% sales tax proposal included in the measure sparked chaos in today’s parliamentary committee meeting.

Usually calm lawmakers rushed committee Chairman Shigetami Sunada and tried to keep him from the meeting room podium. Dozens of security guards scuffled with opposition lawmakers who broke the chairman’s microphone cord. Others jeered loudly.

But Sunada called a vote and Nakasone’s Liberal Democratic Party legislators, who control the committee, passed the $381-billion budget with a show of hands.

“We demand the immediate resignation of the Nakasone Cabinet for carrying out such an outrageous act,” the four main opposition parties said afterward in a statement. “The railroading is a huge betrayal of the public.”