After a protracted debate in the Knesset plenum and coalition threats to vote against, the revised 2024 state budget passed its second and third readings by a majority of 62 MKs in favor and 55 MKs against. Approval comes three weeks after the deadline set by law for passing the new budget.
The new 2024 state budget amounts to NIS 584 billion, about 14% higher than the original spending limit set last year as part of the 2023-2024 biennial budget. The need to pass a revised budget for 2024 was due to the economic consequences of the war.
The Ministry of Finance was forced to give way, for the time being, on about a third of the raft of cuts and adjustments that they wanted to include in the budget. This was due to the refusal by Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni to vote on cuts amounting to a NIS 6.6 billion, most of which apply to 2025-2027.
Shortly before the vote members of the coalition including Minister of Agriculture Avi Dichter, threatened to oppose the bill because of the cuts. Ultimately Dichter backed down. Others who had threatened to vote against including Minister of Education Yoav Kisch and chairman of the Knesset Economics Committee David Biton also did not carry through their threats and supported the budget. But Gideon Sa'ar, who left the National Unity party yesterday, did vote against.
Due to events, Bezalel Smotrich did not make the traditional speech by the minister of finance in the plenum before the budget vote. He was in consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was pressuring the Likud ministers and MKs to support the budget despite their many reservations.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 13, 2024.
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