Knesset (Israeli parliament) panel to reduce cuts to culture, welfare budgets

Ha'aretz ^ | 23 December 2003 | Zvi Zrahiya

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Last Update: 23/12/2003 22:45
Knesset panel to reduce cuts to culture, welfare budgets
By Zvi Zrahiya, Haaretz Correspondent

The chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee Avraham Hirchson decided Tuesday, after meeting with officials from the treasury and the Labor Social Affairs Ministry to cancel the planned NIS 70 million cut to the 2003 welfare budget.

The Finance Ministry will transfer NIS 35 million to the welfare budget, and the Ministry of Social Affairs will provide the rest of the money in order to prevent damage to weak sectors in the population.

Treasury officials promised the Finance Committee on Tuesday to decrease the planned cut to the culture ministry by NIS 40 million. Committee members MKs Daniel Benlulu (Likud) and Yitzhak Herzog (Labor) held an emergency meeting Tuesday to save the culture budget, which was attended by dozens of artists and MKs.

Education, Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat said Tuesday that her ministry would allocate for culture the same amount allotted by the treasury to the budget.

At the meeting, artists warned that the planned cut to the culture budget would have serious implications. “Don't take away the spirit of the people of Israel," actor Yehoram Gaon told the lawmakers. Actor Yoram Hatav said that the state should not be turned into a “stock exchange of values”, in which "values that cannot be traded on the stock exchange and yield no monetary profits have no right to exist."

Actress Ayelet Zorer said that young talents were emigrating from the country, and actor Sefi Rivlin said that many artists were on the verge of hunger.

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Earth to Knesset: you can't spend money you don't have. Israel is fighting a war, right?