Jerusalem – Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Tuesday night that he was prepared to go to “war” over his budget, which he said would include cuts to defense and changes in long-standing agreements.
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Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, Lapid said, “You know that there will be war over several of the things I’ve outlined here, perhaps over all of them. I say let there be war.”
Lapid said the deficit constraints meant the Treasury would have to look into “every old agreement that they tell us they can’t touch ‘because that’s the way it always was.’” Fresh off a two-day airline strike, the Histadrut Labor Federation said Monday that it was forming a united front with union leaders in the fields of medicine, teaching and university students in preparation for budget talks.
Lapid said the central guiding factor for the budget was to aid “the working man,” the Israeli citizens who work and pay taxes. Among the problems Lapid highlighted as “betraying” Israel’s workers: low state royalties on natural resource extraction, healthy people living on disability payments, narrow interests controlling the country’s ports, public services and product prices, high daycare costs, housing benefits that put those who serve in the army at a disadvantage and water prices that are 4% too high because of inefficiencies in the market.
He also said that the defense budget would have to be cut, and that the ultra-Orthodox population would have to be educated integrated into the workforce, which would add a full percentage point to GDP.
During the speech, Lapid referred to the deficit as a “budget hole of 35 million shekels,” doubling down on a figure he used at the Knesset on Monday that drew him into an online spat with Opposition Leader Shelly Yacimovich.
Posting a recent Treasury document on the deficit on Facebook Tuesday morning, Yacimovich noted that the most recent figures actually pegged the cumulative deficit for the past year (March 2012 – March 2013) at NIS 42b., around 4.5% of GDP. “Is this Lapid’s enormous mistake or painful ignorance?” she wrote.
“A difference of 7 billion shekels is so dramatic to all of our lives that there are almost no words to describe the depth of embarrassment,” she wrote. NIS 7b. she noted, was the entire higher education budget, greater than the budget for hospitals, and triple the budget of the Economy Ministry. “The state budget is too important for errors of this magnitude,” she scolded.
Lapid’s spokeswoman shot back at Yacimovich, posting a rebuttal in the comments section. “The annual deficit for financing in 2012, which is the deficit that includes net credit receipts, came to NIS 34.6b., and that’s the deficit the finance minister was talking about,” she wrote. “This is the number accepted by the Bank of Israel, the Finance Ministry and the Israeli government.”
Because Israel takes in money from loans it has given out, the actual amount of money it has to spend in order to finance the deficit is lower than the simple budget deficit. Thus, in 2012, Israel only had to finance NIS 34.6b. of the NIS 39 b. budget deficit it racked up. The definition generally fell in line with Lapid’s use of the term “overdraft,” and in Tuesday night’s speech he explained that budget cuts were necessary because “the larger the overdraft, the larger the interest on it, and then instead of spending billions on education and health, we spend those same billions on Israel’s growing interest.”
“I have no doubt you made the mistake in good faith, and we’ll be happy to pass the real data on to you,” Lapid’s spokesman chided Yacimovich. “It’s very important that economic picture will be presented fully for the opposition leader, in order to facilitate an appropriate public discussion.”
Yacimovich dismissed the explanation. “Sometimes it’s easier to admit to a mistake. After hours of searching through Treasury data since my post this morning, Lapid found the number that fits the mistake he made,” she said. “Lapid’s decision to use a deficit figure that includes net credit received is puzzling, to say the least.”
Indeed, as Lapid’s spokesperson admitted, the figure Lapid used referred to last year’s deficit, not projections for the 2013 and 2014 budgets. In general, when economic policy makers refer to the deficit and the deficit target, they are referring to the basic difference between spending and revenue in the budget, without reference to the net credit or the amount of financing necessary for the deficit.
Get ready, this is the way of the future, both here in the USA and there in E.Y. The free ride is over for most. I hope there will still be funding for real rachmonus cases but the free ride of thousands of dollars in rent, food stamps and more will stop. Just one short walk down any neighborhood in NYC will show you minority people squandering food stamp money on snacks or soda. The same walk will show you what appear to be able bodied adults not working.
Things are changing, all over the world people that work are demanding equality.
Kol hakavod to yair,he is doing all of us good.
Lapid’s ignorance of budgetary matters is only surpassed by his hatred of chareidim.
I found this quote of Lapid to be quite ironic for a peace-hugging dove:
“I say let there be war”
Just sayin’
(continuing)
When people elect the governments that promise to provide them with lavish benefits, they somehow imagine that they will come free of costs, or rather, the costs will be bared by “my boss.” But as Margaret Thatcher wisely pointed out: “The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.” Guess what. It’s now.
2. You discard the attitude and play the skill card
Skills and experience are worthless when not put to use. Knowledge is useless when not shared with others.
The smaller your business the more likely you are to be an expert in your field, so transferring those skills to new employees is relatively easy. But you can’t train enthusiasm, a solid work ethic, and great interpersonal skills – and those traits can matter a lot more than any skills a candidate brings.
According to this study only 11% of the new hires that failed in the first 18 months failed due to deficiencies in technical skills. The majority failed due to lack of motivation, an unwillingness to be coached, or problems with temperament and emotional intelligence.
Think of it this way: The candidate who lacks certain hard skills might be a cause for concern, but the candidate who lacks the beliefs and values you need is a giant culture debt red flag.