There is no greater evidence of incapacity to govern than the failure to pass a budget; a government that cannot govern should step aside.
By JPOST EDITORIALAlternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Benny Gantz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a vote at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on August 24, 2020.(photo credit: OREN BEN HAKOON/FLASH90)
The dysfunctional character of the current government is apparent almost everywhere one turns.You can see it in the failure to appoint a police commissioner or a state’s attorney; in the state’s inability to enforce its novel coronavirus regulations and prevent the haredim from opening up schools and yeshivas; in the clunky manner in which the government has managed the pandemic crisis.But there is no more glaring an example of the government’s dysfunctional behavior than its inability – 2½ years after the last budget was passed – to pass a new one.“Israel does not need elections, it needs a budget, as fast as possible. All the economists say this,” a very seasoned politician said on July 27, adding that this would make it possible to “pass on more and more money” to small business owners, the self-employed and the newly unemployed, something critical during these trying coronavirus times.And who was that politician? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.But if the state needs a budget as fast as possible, Mr. Netanyahu, why are you placing obstacles in its way? Why are you insisting that a 2020 budget be passed now, that would only go into effect in the last week of December and essentially be a one-week budget, not a one-year budget? Why not do as the coalition agreement stipulates, and which Blue and White head Benny Gantz is increasingly demanding, and pass a budget for 2020-2021 now.The answer is simple: Politics.Thanks to a loophole in the coalition agreement, Netanyahu can only avoid turning over the reins of power to Gantz in November 2021 – a rotation spelled out in the agreement – if the government falls because of failure to pass a budget. The deadline for passing the 2020 budget is December 23, and there is a March 31 deadline for passing the 2021 budget. Each of those dates gives Netanyahu an “exit ramp” out of the rotation agreement.Netanyahu does not want to pass the 2020-2021 budgets together now, even though this is most logical and what most senior economists advise, because that would deprive him of any further exit points.And in the meantime, the country suffers.Astoundingly, the last time Israel passed a budget was in March 2018, a budget that was in force until the end of 2019. Since then the country has been working off a prorated budget, which is simply a colossal failure of governance. Israelis deserve better, especially with so many people now out of work and with so many businesses failing.Budgets are among the most important tools of government everywhere in the world, as they allow countries to plan and set their preferences and priorities. Rarely has this country ever needed to plan and prioritize more than it does now.The government quickly needs to figure out how it will pay for the thousands of more classrooms and hospital beds now necessary because of COVID-19, as well as where the money will come from to provide the needed safety net to all those who have been financially decimated by the pandemic.And that is just the beginning.That even in this hour of crisis and need the government cannot pass a budget bears witness to a government that is unable to fulfill its most elementary task. And if it can’t do that, what right does it have to continue?We argued forcefully in the spring – after the last round of elections – for an emergency unity government and applauded Netanyahu and Gantz when they formed it. Anything, we argued, would be better during a pandemic than going to a fourth election.But now the tide has turned, and five months of governmental dysfunction have taken its toll.A Channel 13 poll on Sunday showed that 48% of the electorate is in favor of new elections now, while 36% are opposed. This is a dramatic shift and an indication that the country is now more afraid of an impotent government than it is of an expensive, divisive and – quite possibly – inconclusive new election.There is no greater evidence of incapacity to govern than the failure to pass a budget; a government that cannot govern should step aside.
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