Lapid slams ‘reckless’ budget, says next generation will be poorer than parents

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid slams the state budget as “reckless” and setting up the next generation to be “poorer than their parents,” shortly before the coalition is set to begin voting to approve the two-year, trillion shekel plan.

“This budget is reckless, it’s a disaster for the Israeli economy and for Israeli society, and it violates the social contract with the State of Israel that we, our children, and our children’s children will pay for,” Lapid says in remarks at the Knesset.

The opposition leader has routinely attacked the government’s allocation of NIS 13.7 billion in discretionary funding, largely to sectoral interests. Among them is NIS 4.9 billion in funding to yeshiva students and religious schools, whose studies often do not enable them to succeed in the workforce.

“Think about what could have been possible with that money, instead of condemning a full generation to poverty. What they’re doing now says not just Haredi children will be condemned to poverty, also our children, this will be the first generation in Israeli history where children will be poorer than their parents,” Lapid says.

“They won’t be able to support themselves, someone will have to support them,” the Yesh Atid party leader, who has long been critical of ultra-Orthodox under-participation in the workforce and military, adds.