At the government meeting Jan. 12, it was hard to ignore the contradiction between the statements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon regarding the economic achievements and might of the state, and the pessimistic picture presented by senior Finance Ministry officials regarding an expected growth of 4.2% in the deficit in 2021, and the need for concrete and immediate steps to address it.
One of the ministers who participated in the meeting told the financial paper Globes anonymously, “The fact that we are in an ongoing election period makes the ministers almost like extras in a play … we don’t have tools to address the problems, especially the deficit. We all know that this problem will likely be addressed by a government with a different composition, perhaps completely different, and so there's no real use of talking about it now.”
