Finance Ministry: Budget Must Pass ASAP -- But Not at Any Price
(Communicated by Finance Ministry Spokesman)
Jerusalem, 18 January 1999
Finance Ministry Director-General Ben-Zion Zilberfarb today (Monday)
18.1.99, speaking before the Judges Association in Eilat, said that the
Knesset must make every effort to pass the state budget and Arrangements
Law, as submitted by the government, as soon as possible. "However," he
added, "the budget should not be passed at any price. The proposed budget
is intended to accelerate growth and create new sources of employment.
Allocating funds for other purposes will cause the budget to be breached
and disrupt priorities."
Zilberfarb noted that the many demands being made by MKs for changes in
the Arrangements Law and the state budget risk serious damage to the
budget's goals. "In such a situation, I may have to recommend before Prime
Minister and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to consider continuing to
manage the country's economy in the next six months on the basis of the
1998 budget."
He stated that this should be an undesirable situation because structural
reforms included in the 1999 budget proposal would not then be implemented
and long-term investment plans for economic growth could not be carried
out. "On the other hand, such a situation would be preferable to an
unsupervised opening of the taps, whose price will have to be paid by each
and every one of us after the elections. It is preferable to budgetary
abandonment that could cause economic shocks and serious damage to trust
in the economy and its international rating." He hoped that, "In the end,
MKs will show responsibility, rise above these and other considerations
and pass the budget and Arrangements Law."
Zilberfarb referred to laws raised in the Knesset without any
consideration being given to the ability of the economy and budget to
sustain them. "The greatest threat to the budget comes not only from
coalition factions demanding additional funds for themselves, but
especially from the consequences of populistic legislation raging in the
Knesset that ignores the need to vote for necessary sources of funding to
finance the additional expenditures resulting from the proposed bills."
According to Zilberfarb, breaching the budget will cause one of two
possibilities (or a combination of them), "The bill for what happens today
will be submitted to the public by the victorious coalition the day after
the election, and we may find ourselves paying for it for a long time to
come. Alternatively, one of the first tasks of any elected government will
be to cancel the expensive laws passed now and the economy will pay an
unnecessary price for the changes in policy."