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PM Netanyahu Under Fire Following Announced Budget Cuts


bibnPrime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is under fire from the left and right-wing following announced budget cuts following Operation Protective Edge. MK (Yahadut Hatorah) Moshe Gafne accuses Finance Minister Yair Lapid of operating in the dark.

To cover the cost of the counter-terrorism operation in Gaza the cabinet will be approving a 2% cut in the budget of all government ministries. This will include a 2 billion shekel cut from the Ministry of Education. The decision by the cabinet has both opposition and coalition lawmakers angry amid the realization that once again the weaker sectors will bear the burden of the cuts.

MK (Labor) Shelly Yacimovich calls it “crazy”, explaining “once again the poor and the middle class, the lower wage earners, will be the ones hardest hit. The place to find money is [to eliminate the] tax exemptions. The government prefers to target the families that do not have money for private lessons and tutors. The ill and those being cared for by welfare and those using public transportation will have to endure this additional burden”.

Shas party leader Aryeh Deri added “The cuts are an outrage and chutzpah. Instead of eliminating tax cuts among the wealthy and the enormous budgets afforded the wealthy, the government prefers to take from the second Israel, those whose voices are never heard. I call on members of the cabinet to vote against the cuts and not to lend a hand that is pulverizing the weaker sectors”.

Former Shas leader MK Eli Yishai added that Yesh Atid entered the Knesset on the heels of the social outrage protests and it appears it will spark a renewal of those protests. He rejects the government plan that will place an additional burden on families that simply have nothing left to give and cannot afford any additional cuts whatsoever.

Gafne added the planned cuts will negatively impact all essential services to middle class and poor families. “Finance Minister Lapid is completely twisted by hitting the middle class and the weaker sectors in social service by the broad cuts in all government agencies, including the transportation, education, higher education, health and housing and other essential services, and at the same time fighting to get more. At the very same time the finance minister is pushing the zero value added tax law which will cost nation 2.4 billion shekels. Even according to Lapid’s assessment of the law, it will only benefit a small sector of the country and while Israeli and other economists call the bill bad for the economy, a bill that will ultimately cause apartment prices in Israel to increase”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)



10 Responses

  1. There are dozens of yungeleit who have chosen or are considering going back to
    America,
    and professionals (in my family) as well

    To the “Israel’s always right even if they’re wrong” whiners:

    How does Germany which has similar tax brackets to Is. gives out 5x the benefits ?!

    But we digress…

  2. The lesson to learn from this is ACHDUS AMONG THE FRUM PARTIES IS THE ONLY WAY TO CONTROL THIS ABUSE.In the last election had ALL THE FRUM PARTIES JOINT TOGETHER FOR THE SAKE OF HASHEM ,then they would have had 26-28 seats in the keneseet ,that would have giving them a say in EVERY THING including should yeshiva boys be drafted into the army etc.Let’s hope in the next election ALL THE FRUM PARTIES will set aside their diffrencs for the sake of Hashem and join together.May all the Jews have a gut year.

  3. Yet they have the money to seize a square mile and a half of Palestinian Arab land on the other side of the Green Line, making Israel look awful in the eyes of the world — and pulling the rug out from under those who have been defending it against the people who have been attacking Israel for its conduct of the Gaza war.

  4. UH Oh

    Whenever isreal is about to shift left on what’s really important to our sense of self and destiny,they cover it with bellicose settlement building :

    Monday September 1, 2014

    The United States sees Israel’s announcement on Sunday of a land appropriation for possible settlement construction in the West Bank as “counterproductive” to peace efforts and urges the Israeli government to reverse the decision, a State Department official said, Reuters reported.

    Israel claimed nearly a thousand acres (400 hectares) in the Etzion settlement bloc near Bais Lechem, a move which an anti-settlement group termed the biggest appropriation in 30 years and a Palestinian official said would cause only more friction after the Gaza war.

  5. verizon,

    that will remain a pipe dream as long as chareidi parties view the other one as someone taking away their seats. its not productive to achdus when their isnt achdus within their own party

  6. #3 Verizon

    Should they also join together with all the other with parties in knesset?
    What do they have in common?
    Name was the last that the srugim ,except Charda’l,stood for judaism?

    In the past, Likud was invariably better than the Srugim,and worked together with the charedim,

    Should they have joined them?

    Who went out and with declared intent destroyed the Traditional Pact?

    They should coalesce against shabbos and kashrus?
    That’s a piece of cake!

    Count on the Srugot to be up for that(e.g, with Ger for Barkat)!

    The charedim should have worked closer with charda’l in the past
    Hopefully,the lessons will be gainfully employed

    The fault goes both ways .Who tolerated,with ample warning, Bennet,Shaked & Co. getting to where they are now and are heading?

    Achdus for what?

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