Against a background of protests and angry responses among the public and in political circles to the austerity measures in the 2013-2014 budget, Minister of Finance Yair Lapid answered his critics yesterday in an e-mail message to supporters of his Yesh Atid party. Lapid said the measures would quickly be over, and would be followed by a series of reforms to deal with the problem of the cost of living in Israel.
On the accusation that the austerity measures mainly hit the middle class, Lapid wrote that although the middle class has indeed been hurt, it now shares the burden with other sections of the population.
"I have not hit the middle class in particular," Lapid wrote, "The haredim, who have been politically immune up to now, will have to join the effort and go out to work. We cut the budget for yeshivot, and the wealthy will also give more. They will not receive child allowance at all, and will pay a great deal more tax on luxury items like prestige cars. In fact, there has never been a more concentrated attempt at distributive justice."
Lapid promises that the middle class will start to feel the changes within a year. "A year from now, you will all start to feel the processes that have now commenced."
In his message, Lapid also responded to the claim that he had avoided tackling the big workers committees, and said that this was not the time to do battle with the unions, when the Israeli economy was in such a sensitive state.
"Every day of a general strike costs the economy over NIS 2 billion, and I don't think that in a period of such a large deficit we can afford to lose more and more money. Instead of that, I went for an agreement with Ofer Eini assuring us of industrial quiet in a difficult period," Lapid wrote, "So yes, we will have to deal with the Israel Electric Corporation. And yes, we will have to deal with the ports. We are not evading that for a moment. But does it not make more sense first of all to see whether it's possible to do this through dialogue, and without paralyzing the Israeli economy?"
Lapid also promised that the austerity measures were not final, and that some would be likely to change in the course of the discussions and debates on the budget. "To be fair I have to mention that I don't think that the Ministry of Finance has a monopoly on wisdom; one must always be prepared to listen."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 12, 2013
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