On Sunday, Israel’s Finance Ministry published a report detailing the deficit and spending for this year. In the updated Knesset budget for 2024, Israel’s deficit was supposed to be capped at a ceiling of 6.6% of the county’s GDP. However, the report shows the deficit this year is up to 7.2% of GDP.
Additionally, Israel’s public spending is up 35%, year over year.
The monthly deficit in May was NIS 10 billion, and NIS 46.7 billion since the start of the year.
The additional spending is somewhat expected due to the costs of the war. However the report also found that after accounting for war spending, public spending was still up 10% year over year. Meanwhile public income is only up 2%.
Israel’s government has faced criticism that it is increasing spending for coalition party’s pet causes in a time of war, when every Shekel should be saved.
{Matzav.com}
