They continue to laugh in our faces. From today, it’s not just Minister of Housing Ariel Atias who has fixed it so that the criteria for affordable housing will be in accordance with his peculiar outlook on life, but also, and it’s official, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz. They joined in Atias’s clever and cunning exercise, diverted public attention to the strengthening of the criteria giving preference to those who have served in the army, and ignored the matter of exhausting earning capacity.
Setting criteria that give army veterans their due is a fine thing, although not really genuine or substantial, mainly because of the fact that those who serve in the army generally reach the status of being married with several children at a much later age than haredim who are not drafted into the army. Therefore the priority, in the end, after all the fine words, goes to those who do not contribute to military service.
The critical point is of course exhaustion of earning capacity. When it comes to contribute its share, through the heavy taxes it pays, to supporting families that cannot afford to finance housing, does the public really want to support those who make no effort to support themselves when they can do so? And no, we are not talking about those incapable of working because of illness, disability, or some difficult family problem. They receive income supplement, and are included in the group covered by exhaustion of earning capacity.
The problem is with those capable of working and earning a living, but who do not work and do not earn a living, for their own reasons.
Ariel Atias ignored this matter completely. It’s not good for his voters, so why should he get into a trap that he would find it hard to escape from? Avigdor Liberman, following on from the recommendations of the Trajtenberg committee, insisted, and continues to insist, on inclusion of the exhaustion of earning capacity rule, possibly also with his potential voters in mind: the middle class that works, pays its way, and turns rightwards. However, Liberman’s stance does better serve the toiling middle class in the ranks of the army, the workforce, the reserves, the taxpayers. Netanyahu and Steinitz chose today to prefer Atias’s stance, for their own reasons. Just don’t let them that they are acting doing things for the sake of army veterans. Those who serve in the army are also those who go on to work and earn a living. That, apparently, is not important to them.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 30, 2012
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