Amid the battle for the 2015 state budget, Finance Minister Yair Lapid told Ynet on Tuesday that he would rather quit the government and bring to its collapse than agree to raise taxes.
Despite that, he was not keen on going to elections. "Elections is not a good thing for the state of Israel. I'm not afraid of elections, but they're not necessary," he said, adding: "I will quit the government rather than raise taxes. I ran with this for office and I said I won't let it get to a situation in which every time there's a problem, the government milks the public for all it has."
The finance minister said he was not worried about the squabbling over the budget, saying "it does not seem to me to be very different to the kind of conduct we've seen before every budget passing."
"I've been through a hard budget already with all of the pressures it involved. There are always pressures being put on the finance minister," he added.
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The Defense Ministry, for example, is seeking nearly 70 billion shekels ($20 billion) in the 2015 budget, an increase of $3 billion over 2014, as it settles the bills from its Gaza war and draws up plans to confront enemies on other borders.
"I say to the defense establishment that I understand that new needs arose," Lapid said in his interview with Ynet. "We need a solution for mortars and tunnels, we need money for that."
"But I won't let it turn into a Turkish bazaar," he stressed. "I want to give you all the money we have, but I can't give you money we don't."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly ordered his party whip to de facto put Lapid's flagship legislation on hold.
Netanyahu asked MK Yariv Levin, head of the Knesset Committee, not to convene the committee to discuss Lapid's 0% VAT bill, effectively preventing the bill from continuing through the legislation process, according to a report on Channel 10.
The bill is supposed to exempt young couples from VAT when they purchase their first home. Lack of affordable housing is considered one of the central issues facing Israel's middle class, Lapid's main constituency.
Responding to the report, Lapid told Ynet he was not worried about the bill passing as "the prime minister has not said anything publicly about freezing 0% VAT."
He went on to say that the legislation has already passed the approval of the Finance Committee, and now requires a discussion in the House Committee.
"I don't need to say I'll make a fuss if 0% VAT doesn't pass, because it already passed," he said, adding that the government "could not afford not to uphold government decisions. This would mean a total collapse. A government that starts not upholding decisions won't need to be dissolved, it'll dissolve itself."
Lapid also asserted the crisis in the coalition over the budget would be resolved without the need to dissolve the government.