From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Knesset passes amended wartime 2024 budget 62-55
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"
The Knesset passes an amended wartime budget 62-55 following two days of furious debate.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party welcomes the vote, noting that it managed to pass “a budget that guarantees the continuation of the war until complete victory and benefits the citizens of Israel and the state’s economy.”
The budget’s passage is panned by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who calls it the most “sectoral, detached and profligate budget in the history of the State of Israel” and pledges that it is “the last budget this government will pass.”
The coalition manages to overcome strong internal opposition to the budget, which was opposed by members of Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party, as well as Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud), who only votes in favor of the measure after receiving reassurances from Netanyahu that he would “resolve the crisis in the agriculture budget by Passover.”
According to the revised budget bill, the government expenditure limit for 2024 will stand at NIS 584.1 billion ($160 billion), more than NIS 70 billion ($19 billion) higher than the original 2024 budget approved in May 2023, prior to the outbreak of war on October 7.
NIS 55 billion ($15 billion) of this additional 70 billion is allocated to financing the military while the rest will go toward civilian wartime needs.
The budget pairs across-the-board cuts with additional spending on war-related matters and has generated widespread opposition — both within and outside Netanyahu’s coalition — with many complaining that it fails to trim extraneous spending and coalition-linked interests while cutting back on critical services.
The Times of Israel Community.