Finance Minister Yair Lapid
Photo: Ilan Shapiro
Lapid defends budget: Significant additions to social ministries
Finance minister criticizes cost of living crisis, saying 'no one has done a single thing on this issue for years. They've let the monster get stronger.'
Finance Minister Yair Lapid defended the 2015 state budget hon Sunday, saying the budget was not "merely a budget of cutbacks, but one with significant additions not just for defense, but to social ministries as well."
"Budgets for social services have received additional funds beyond the natural increase - we've expanded the food market, improved medical care, shortened queues, increased stipends for the elderly and more," Lapid said at the beginning of Yesh Atid's faction meeting.
"The budget will also lower the price of living," he added, saying it wouldn't just be his Zero Percent VAT plan that would help lower costs of apartments, "but a whole series of plans we've formulated."
New budget to include increased stipends to elderly. Lapid at a Rosh Hashanah event for Holocaust survivors (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was not "enthusiastic" about Lapid's Zero VAT plan, the finance minister answered back, accusing that "No one has done a single thing on this issue for years. They've let the monster get stronger, and did nothing."
At present, the budget proposal includes cutbacks alongside increasing the state's revenues by a total of NIS 7 billion, in addition to a NIS 4.3 billion deficit to fund increase in the defense budget.
NIS 1 billion will be cut from the budgets for transportation, housing, and the budget for construction of schools - though one billion will be transferred from the Jewish National Fund to cover the cuts.
Some 1.7 billion will be cut from a number of ministries, out of which 330 million shekels will be funded by reducing salary expenses, through cutting back on additional hours and the scope of certain positions.
Lapid and Netanyahu have been at odds over the budget. Netanyahu has expressed objection to Lapid's flagship Zero Percent VAT legislation. "It is easiest to hand out promise after promise, but much harder to maintain a responsible policy," the prime minister said as a veiled criticism of the finance minister.
