ISLAMABAD, Nov 5, (Asia Free Press): Israel’s parliament approved on Friday, the 2022 national budget by a vote of 59 to 56, giving a greater measure of fiscal stability to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s cross-partisan coalition government.
The $146 billion spending package was ratified after the Knesset passed on Thursday a belated 2021 budget ahead of a deadline which, if unmet, could have triggered a snap election.
“We’ve put Israel back on track,” Bennett said on Twitter.
A political stalemate under his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, had meant that no budget had been approved in more than 3 and 1/2 years. Instead, Israel had a pro-rated version of the 2019 budget, an impediment to long-term economic planning.
Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman repeatedly called the budget “the most socioeconomic budget ever.” He rejected charges that key elements singled out and purposely harmed the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) sector. No budget in Israeli history has had as large a scope, the finance minister had said earlier.
