BREAKING NEWS

Lapid: Israeli society will turn from welfare to work

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN, JPOST.COM STAFF

APRIL 22, 2013 15:37

Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Monday said that the upcoming Knesset session slated to begin would be "contentious" because of the need to pass a budget with a deficit of NIS 350 million.

Speaking at a meeting of his Yesh Atid faction, Lapid said that he saw the need to deal with the ballooning deficit as an opportunity to change Israel from "a culture of welfare payments to a culture of work."

Lapid attacked those that criticize his proposed budget cuts and tax raises stating that trumpeting help for the weak without saying where the help should come from was not policy and that "empathy cannot take the place of policy."

The finance minister confirmed that there was indeed both budget cuts and tax hikes on the horizon, but vowed that within two years every Israeli would feel the change that he is living in a fair society, not a society of sectoral interests.

"Those who see the budget beyond populism will see it as a budget that brings hope. The pain will come and go," Lapid stated.

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