‘Billions are being stolen’: Opposition slams 2025 state budget ahead of final vote
MKs launch 15-hour extended debate of controversial NIS 756 billion ($203.5 billion) wartime budget, which Lapid pans as the ‘greatest robbery in the history of the country’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Leading members of the opposition harshly criticized the government’s proposed 2025 state budget on Monday, dismissing it as “disconnected” from reality and the “robbery,” ahead of the final vote needed for its passage.
The Knesset was debating the budget at a marathon session overnight Monday-Tuesday, with final votes set for Tuesday midday.
“What is on the Knesset table is not a budget, it is theft,” Opposition leader Yair Lapid told reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
Calling the NIS 756 billion ($203.5 billion) budget the “greatest robbery in the history of the country,” Lapid charged that “billions upon billions that are stolen from the money of the middle class, reservists, and taxpayers, are going into the pockets of corrupt businessmen, dodgers, and refusers.”
The 2025 budget is over 20 percent larger than last year’s financial plan, which the Knesset Finance Committee has said is largely a product of higher defense outlays. An unprecedented NIS 136 billion is earmarked for defense in the 2025 version.
Lapid also complained that the budget includes billions for ultra-Orthodox yeshivas whose students refuse to enlist in the IDF, while the state “exploits” the middle class and spends billions more to “maintain completely unnecessary government ministries” for political reasons.
Opposition lawmakers have harshly criticized the government for its plans to cut around NIS 3 billion ($814 million) across various ministries — affecting the salaries of public sector workers such as teachers and social workers while not touching funds for ultra-Orthodox educational institutions and ministries previously described as superfluous by treasury officials.
Earlier this month, the cabinet approved the allocation of NIS 5 billion ($1.3 billion) in coalition funds, including over a billion shekels for yeshivas. Various Haredi institutions and causes are set to receive hundreds of millions in additional funding.
“They didn’t raise taxes because of the war. The war is financed in other ways. They raised taxes because they couldn’t stop spending money on themselves. This is their solution to every political crisis,” Lapid said.
National Unity chairman Benny Gantz likewise denounced the budget, arguing that “the passage of the evasion law and the evasion budgets are how we tear the people apart and give a gift to our enemies.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has previously touted the budget as good for both the economy and the war effort, stating last week that it includes “massive sums” for IDF reservists and for the rehabilitation of the war-battered north and south of the country.
The final vote
The Knesset Finance Committee approved the budget for the final two readings necessary for it to become law on Sunday evening. Lawmakers began debating the bill — which must pass by March 31 or the Knesset will automatically dissolve —in the plenum on Monday at 8 p.m.
The first 15 hours of the all-night marathon debate will be dedicated to dealing with the numerous reservations to the bill filed by members of the opposition and the final votes will be held Tuesday at noon. Budget bills are often accompanied by thousands of reservations and objections filed by lawmakers.
The total budget will be NIS 756 billion ($203.5 billion), or 620 billion excluding debt servicing for a 21% rise in spending over 2024. The Defense Ministry’s budget alone will be a record NIS 110 billion ($29 billion) out of a total defense budget of NIS 136 billion ($36.9 billion) while the deficit is set at 4.9% of gross domestic product.
Israel spent $31 billion on its military conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon in 2024 and the government vowed to sharply boost defense spending going forward.
After the Defense Ministry, the Education Ministry is slated to receive just over NIS 92 billion ($25 billion) while the Health Ministry will get NIS 59 billion ($16 billion).
Health Minister Uriel Busso touted the additional funding for his ministry, stating that it would go toward strengthening the health system, including care for those affected by the war.
Following the Knesset Finance Committee’s approval of the budget bill on Sunday, opposition lawmakers protested that not everything being spent had been made clear to them.
“We always received the allocation of every shekel of coalition funds to the coalition members. Here there was a dangerous precedent that this information was classified. The fact that they’re refusing to give us this information is a very dangerous precedent, particularly since every year this government breaks records with these funds,” Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak told the committee.
“This is a bad budget, socially and morally,” Beliak added, arguing that if Finance Minister Smotrich’s policies continue “there is a high likelihood that it will be necessary to raise taxes at the end of this year too.”
In response, a Finance Ministry representative said that government decisions had not yet been made regarding the coalition funds that will eventually be allocated.
Squeezing the middle class
Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni (UTJ) welcomed the advancement of the budget bill on Sunday evening, stating that “this is not an easy budget in a difficult period.”
“We did everything we could and ultimately succeeded in reducing many of the taxes that the treasury had proposed, thereby easing the burden on citizens,” Gafni said.
Despite this, taxes have risen and benefits have been cut, squeezing the disposable income of working-class households.
On January 1, tax hikes came into effect to boost state income and fill a fiscal gap due to the high defense expenses during the war. Value-added-tax rose from 17% to 18%. VAT is a consumption tax that is collected through the purchase of goods and services, and is levied on most consumer goods and services, except for fresh produce.
In addition, National Insurance payments rose, one day of recuperation payments was deducted from salaried employees, and income tax brackets and tax credit points were frozen.
The ultra-Orthodox back down
The budget is unlikely to face any major challenge passing in the Knesset following the return of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party to the government last week, bringing the coalition’s majority back to 68 seats.
United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf has previously threatened to vote against the state budget, bringing down the government, if it did not first deal with the conscription issue.
Despite his threats, following the far-right Otzma Yehudit party’s return to the government, Goldknopf lost his leverage and backed down, with all of his faction’s MKs voting in favor of the Economic Arrangements Law last Thursday.
Sharon Wrobel and Reuters contributed to this report.
