The NIS 6 billion budget required for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coronavirus grant program was approved by the cabinet on Sunday, although the model for distribution has yet to be decided. Netanyahu, together with Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, Finance Minister Israel Katz and Economy Minister Amir Peretz, will decide by the end of Monday on how the money will be distributed. Katz will then formulate draft legislation to implement the plan, which will then be brought back to the government for approval and passage to the Knesset “in order to provide the grants to citizens as quickly as possible,” the Prime Minister's Office said. At the beginning of the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu repeated his assertion that the grants are designed to stimulate the economy and promote employment. He said that “the emphasis is on speed, in terms of the mechanism and the decisions, and so this discussion has to happen over the next 24 hours and no later than tomorrow, so that we can implement it as quickly as possible. However, funds will not be delivered until next week, Channel 13 reported on Sunday . In addition, it was reported the government is considering replacing money with coupons to ensure people will spend the grants, and not save them. While unemployment and disability payments are expected to increase, the sum given to single adults is expected to shrink from NIS 750 to between NIS 400 and 500. NETANYAHU'S GRANTS scheme was heavily panned, however, by critics inside the government, within the Finance Ministry and by the opposition, who alleged the program was politically populist, designed to assuage public anger over mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis. In particular, numerous critics said the plan, which would issue the same grants to all families and individuals regardless of their financial circumstances, would waste money on those who have not been negatively financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic instead of directing it to those who have lost their jobs or whose businesses have suffered. Higher and Secondary Education Minister and Water Resources Minister Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) expressed opposition to the universal nature of the grants during the cabinet meeting. He suggested that either all, or the majority, of the NIS 6b. should go to those receiving income support payments from the state, such as the disabled, elderly and others on the lowest end of the socioeconomic index. Elkin added that the grants could also be conditional, so that if someone could prove at the end of the year that his income has fallen he would keep the grant, but if his income had not been affected then the grant could be deducted from National Insurance payments in the coming years. Other Likud ministers reportedly expressed opposition to issuing the grants without regard to the socioeconomic status of the recipients. “More must be given to those who have less,” Blue and White said in a press statement Saturday night, adding that while it was “appropriate” to give money to citizens at this time, there were various options. THE UNITED Torah Judaism Party also was not well disposed to the plan, with MK Moshe Gafni, senior MK and chair of the Knesset Finance Committee, expressing opposition to the blanket grants. Once the ministerial team to determine how the grants system will work has been established, authorization for the program will pass to Gafni's committee. “I don't understand why we should give money to rich families,” Gafni said after Netanyahu presented the plan on Wednesday. On Saturday night, Gafni called on government ministers not to support the plan unless the grants are provided on a differential basis for rich and poor and with a grant allocated for every child. Netanyahu's original plan proposed a family with three children or more would get a grant of NIS 3,000, meaning larger families with 10 children, for example, would get the same as those with three. Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) families have, on average, seven children, and Gafni wants them to receive adequate support during the COVID-19 crisis. In defense of their original plan, Netanyahu and Katz argued that by transferring grants to all citizens, they are bypassing bureaucracy and avoiding the need to have citizens appeal for a grant via an online platform or to establish who gets what sum. According to the plan, families with one child will receive NIS 2,000; families with two children, NIS 2,500; families of three or more, NIS 3,000; and individuals 18 and older will get NIS 750. Netanyahu publicly blamed Israeli bureaucracy, Knesset committees and Finance Ministry officials for taking allegedly unreasonable amounts of time to debate and approve measures he sees as needed to curb the coronavirus. His critics claim that due to the great uncertainty Israelis are facing with conflicting reports about gyms, restaurants, beaches and schools opening and shutting down without any apparent data to back decisions, it is likely people will opt to keep the money they get via the program. That means it won't be used to buy services and products and would achieve its goal. Finance Ministry officials reportedly referred to it as “putting money we don't have in bags and throwing them to the sea.” Japan and South Korea, two countries that offered their citizens grants with similar goals, first got the COVID-19 outbreak under control. In the US, another country that offered its citizens checks with the outbreak still in full swing, the full grant was limited to those earning less than $75,000 per year, and no grants were given to those earning more than $99,000 per year.
