"I am worried by what is happening. I just married off my daughters within six weeks. It's amazing to discover what this does to you. The responsibility is no longer direct. I no longer have to worry about food for them or a sweater when the evening is cold. I have to worry about what kind of country I will leave behind me," Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg told "Globes" in an interview. The chairman of the Committee for Socioeconomic Change reveals that he is considering entering politics and joining a party headed by former Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni.
Trajtenberg declines to discuss this, saying that he is speaking from his heart, and people can draw their own conclusions.
"Globes": What worries you?
Trajtenberg: "The world is full of uncertainty, both near and far. It's unacceptable that policy, dialogue, and thinking should be what they have been until now. Very regrettably, I do not see anyone important who is aware of this. Someone should begin thinking seriously about how to deal with all the challenges. We need different thinking here. It sometimes seems to me that we think we're living in the Garden of Eden, but we're not."
So the elections are a kind of opportunity.
"We are stuck in a dialogue of pettiness. I am terribly afraid of the elections. There's no dialogue; there are mostly blows. Within ten days, you sign a coalition agreement and hit the road. What kind of road, exactly?"
What happened to housing? How do you explain that nothing has happened?
"That's a real failure. We were there; housing was one of the triggers of the social protest. We should have started with all the power at our disposal because it was clear that this would take time. That's what infuriates me the most. Not only has nothing happened, but we haven’t realized that we need the systematic action that the committee spoke about. You can't deal with this by a tweak here and a tweak there. There is no such thing. We've basically dumped the problem on to the Bank of Israel, which is not supposed to deal with this. The Bank of Israel cannot deal with the housing problem, which is basically a problem on the supply side. There is no government support for dealing with this issue.
"The measures taken following the publication of the Trajtenberg Committee recommendations are not enough! Even if all the recommendations were implemented, it would not be enough. You have to understand that meaningful change relates to the government's day-to-day policy, when the government wants, not when it is compelled. The disk needs to be replaced, and the disk hasn’t been replaced yet. That is completely clear to me."
What happened to the recommendations?
"On taxes, everything has already happened. The most important thing is that the cutting of the companies tax and individual income tax rates has stopped. If we hadn’t done that, the deficit would already amount to 5-6% of GDP - and that's huge. Young people feel the tax credit for small children, especially fathers. Everything happened except for the surtax, which greatly angers me. I have not yet been given a persuasive reason for why this was stopped.
"Free education for preschoolers has not been fully implemented, because the responsibility still has to be transferred from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor to the Ministry of Education. After all, kindergartens aren’t parking lots, where you drop off a child and pick him up after 4 pm. It's not just a matter of no longer paying for something you used to pay for. This is a critical thing, and if there is a public fight for it, I'll be there in this fight, in whatever role. It's our future.
What is the first thing you'd advise the next finance minister to do?
"First of all, it's necessary to make it clear to the government, the Knesset, and the public the significance of all the threats around us to the state budget and priorities. This has to be put on the table, because there is no clarity. Part of the public thinks that the state budget is based on arbitrary decisions. By the way, this dialogue was clear in the social protest. There are the good guys and the bad guys.
"The good guys say, 'Spend', and the bad guys say, 'No.' This also exists within the government. There is a sense that there is always money, when the main restraints are so obvious! Unless you are totally irresponsible."
Trajtenberg says that massive budget cuts must be made to meet the spending targets, while making it clear that Israel must meet social needs in 2013. "The defense budget cannot be a result; it should be a factor in setting policy. A responsible policy must be set vis-a-vis budget limitations, let's assume NIS 60 billion. There is a precedent for this. Prime Minister David Ben Gurion told IDF Chief of Staff Yigal Yadin that this was his budget and he had to work with it, and Yadin resigned because he was not prepared to do so."
Why don’t they do this today?
"Cowardice. Because no one dares to do what I am telling you: take the resources you have as the limit, and then explain what you can do and what you cannot do with these resources. I say this with responsibility, and I know the defense budget well." (Trajtenberg was a member of the Brodet Committee on the defense budget).
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 28, 2012
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012