The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance present the plan to reduce the cost of living.
A media victory at the price of a discount at the expense of the public (Photo: Flash 90, Yonatan Zindel)
At the beginning of January, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Betsala Smotrich stood in front of the cameras and announced a series of emergency measures to reduce the cost of living.
One of the main ones was stopping the increase in the price of fuel.
Netanyahu even explained that the price of fuel has a horizontal effect on the overall increase in prices in the economy.
Tonight, this announcement was supposed to receive a blow, when the fuel prices determined by an independent committee were supposed to increase by a rate of about 33 Euros per liter, to a level of NIS 7.17 per liter of 95 gasoline in self-fueling.
At the last minute, the increase in price was avoided, when the Minister of Finance signed an order reducing the excise tax.
The order will go into effect within 48 hours - and will actually mean a reduction in the price of fuel, as presented by Netanyahu and Smotrich at the joint press conference.
The signing was preceded by drama, when the Prime Minister's Office realized that one of his public promises was going to be canceled due to the increase in the price of fuel that was supposed to take effect at midnight tonight.
Netanyahu's office exerted heavy pressure on the Treasury officials.
The problem was that since the State of Israel operates under a continuous budget, the Treasury needed creativity to find funding sources to reduce the excise tax, worth hundreds of millions of shekels.
The source found is in the reduction of the provision for the property tax fund, as approved by the finance committee.
Only after the sources were found, could the Minister of Finance sign the said reduction.
In other words: although this is a victory for Netanyahu and a discount that will benefit the pockets of all Israeli citizens, it must be remembered that the funding sources found for the discount also come from the public purse, in other words: from the pockets of all of us.
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Benjamin Netanyahu
Bezalel Smotrich
the price of fuel
Cost of living
