Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Monday continued expressing public concern over the economy, saying he was "very worried by the economic data presented to me" in ongoing meetings with senior Treasury officials.
Maariv reported Sunday night that Lapid and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to cut the defense budget by scaling back its NIS 4.5b.over the next year and a half in order to reduce the large deficit. Maariv reported that NIS 16b. would be slashed from spending, hitting child allowances, infrastructure work on roads and highways, and the implementation of the child education law.
From Monday morning until the hours before the Passover holiday began, Lapid held "marathon meetings" with this top advisers. He expressed concern not only over the fiscal problems, which he called "an overdraft," but also with the low labor participation rate among the ultra-Orthodox and Arab sectors. In February, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said that only 20 percent of Arab women and under half of haredi men work.
"Detailed decisions about the necessary economic steps still have not been taken," Lapid said. "After I finish the discussions with heads of the Treasury and the prime minister, I will turn to the Israeli public and present it with the state of the economy as it really is and the decisions necessary to return it to the right path."
Lapid also met with Fischer and spoke by phone to his US counterpart Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to discuss global economic challenges. He will continue his meetings through Passover's Chol Hamoed.