After an all-night meeting, the cabinet on Friday approved the state budget for 2019. The budget totals 397.3 billion shekels ($116.8 billion), of which 60 billion shekels ($18 billion) is allocated for education; 38 billion shekels ($11 billion) for health care; and 63 billion ($19 billion) for defense and security.
The budget allocates 13 billion shekels for welfare spending, including benefits for Holocaust survivors, and some 2 billion shekels for stipends for the disabled. A budget deficit of 2.9% is projected for 2019, which is expected to drop to 2.5% in 2020.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated his cabinet and told them, "The cabinet has approved an excellent budget that expresses its consistent, responsible policy. The budget preserves growth and economic strength, and also takes care of social needs. Our government will continue to work for the good of the state of Israel for a long time."
The budget passed after the Finance and Welfare and Social Services ministries hammered out an agreement on how much would be spent on stipends for the disabled. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon also struck a deal in which old-age pensions are to be increased by 900 million shekels ($265 million) two years from now.
The new budget increases benefits for elderly immigrants from Russia by 50%.
Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel secured an additional 100 million shekels ($29.4 million) for the agricultural sector, a sum that includes 15 million shekels ($4.4 million) for defense against agricultural terrorism. Environmental Protection Minister Zeev Elkin also received an increased budget for 2019.
The budget features reforms: a plan to improve the finances of working families that includes new tax benefits; national hospice care; increased competition in the television market; a measure that allows customers to switch banks online; decreased prices for surgeries at private hospitals; a shortened work week; shortened school vacations; a plan to reduce the use of cash; an increased stock of housing; grants to encourage participation in the workforce; and a reduction in the number of government offices.
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said on Friday that "the 2019 state budget is a social budget that is focused on growing and strengthening the Israeli economy. Growth is what allows us to introduce social reforms in the budget. The finance minister is not a treasurer. His job is to make the economy grow and direct the fruits of that growth to the right places and the populations that have been forgotten for too many years.
"This budget continues the social revolution and sets a new order for [budgetary] allocation," Kahlon said.
Finance Ministry Director General Shai Babad on Thursday characterized the 2019 budget as "responsible and balanced, with major generators for [economic] growth, and is still one of the most socially oriented budgets in the history of Israel."
