Yishai wants more
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Shas wants child allowances increased
After meeting with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Interior Minister Yishai says his party will oppose budget if child allowances are cut: 'Ignoring the needs of large families is unacceptable'
Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai on Friday welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
order to cancel budget cuts affecting disadvantaged populations, but clarified that this would not satisfy his party and that Shas
would demand an increase in the child pensions.
Talking to Ynet, Yishai expressed his wonder over the decision to impose commands hurting the needy populations. "Why don't any of the Treasury people present the alternatives, such as taxation on consumer goods used by the top echelons, those who have no financial trouble and can help in these dire times? We must find ways for these commands to also reach the higher layer's of society."
The minister spoke after meeting with Shas' spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
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Yishai clarified that hurting the child allowances would prompt his party to vote against the budget, saying "I firmly object to the Israeli governments' fashion of ignoring families' needs and hurting the child allowances time and again.
"In the Olmert government we stopped the allowance cuts as being 'bad in their nature.' We joined the Netanyahu government because we won't settle for that and we also want 'good deeds.'
"The tendency to ignore the needs of large families is unacceptable to me. We must increase these allowances for the sake of Israel's children."
The government will discuss the 2009-2010 budget cuts on Sunday and Tuesday. On Thursday, Netanyahu instructed the Finance Ministry to remove the cuts hurting Israel's weak population – elderly people, Holocaust survivors, and disabled people.
