From the Liveblog of
Monday, September 16, 2024
Smotrich defends NIS 3.4 billion addition to 2024 budget, says it’s still within target deficit
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"
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pushes back against critics during a Knesset Finance Committee hearing on the amended 2024 state budget, to which the government wishes to add around NIS 3.4 billion ($924 million) in order to help fund evacuated civilians and reserve soldiers until the end of the year.
When the coalition passed the first amendment to the 2024 budget in March, it was assumed “that the war would end by the end of July,” Smotrich says in an explanation of why additional appropriations are currently necessary.
“We are not increasing the deficit. We set a target of a 6.6 percent deficit and we are still within the deficit target. The deficit has increased and will continue to increase for another month, and then it will converge again with the target we defined,” he continues, pushing back at claims that the new spending will increase the deficit and lead to further credit downgrades.
“There is no such thing as the government losing control of its civil spending. The total amount of cash that the state can spend in one budget year is what was approved for it plus surpluses left over from the previous year,” he continues. “Up to this moment, there are revenues of NIS 19 billion more than we predicted. What limits me is not the deficit target, but the spending rule.”
“We will end the year with a deficit that is lower than the target unless a war starts in the north and then we will come here again. You can argue about politics and the war, but you can’t argue about the need to finance the displaced.”
Last week lawmakers passed the first readings of two related bills needed to increase the budget for the second time this year. The legislation increases the state budget to NIS 727.4 billion ($194 billion) while increasing the spending limit to NIS 587.45 billion ($157 billion), an increase of NIS 3.35 billion.
The two bills are currently being debated in the Knesset Finance Committee in preparation for the second and third readings necessary for them to become law.
This legislation has come under criticism from officials within the Finance Ministry as well as members of the opposition.
Sparring with members of the opposition during the hearing, Smotrich claims that the current government is “correcting 30 years of defeat by the Israeli left who fled and retreated and hid behind walls and fences.”
