Netanyahu presents Likud economic platform

• Published date: 03 August 2022
• Publication title: Globes (Rishon LeZion, Israel)

Netanyahu is the first politician to present an economic program against the background of rising prices, and promises to bring them under control and even halt them by lowering taxes and price cuts. Netanyahu says that in order to extricate Israel from the situation a "stable government" is needed, and that he will lead implementation of the economic program himself if he forms the next government

Netanyahu said he would propose an emergency plan to deal immediately with drivers of inflation: electricity, fuel, and water prices, and that he would freeze arnona (local government rates) for a year. "Every two or three weeks, a ministerial committee headed by me will meet and monitor implementation," he said. He also said that, as in the government he led in 201-2019, he would lower customs duties and further open up the Israeli economy to imports.

Netanyahu further said that he would take action to reduce the tax burden on Israelis by cutting Income Tax rates, giving more tax credit points to parents, and widening the tax brackets. The program also includes deepening negative income tax and reducing Companies Tax.

Greater government efficiency

Like Benny Gantz's Blue & White party, Likud is promising free pre-school education from birth. Netanyahu claims that surplus tax collection of NIS 60 billion is expected, and that this will serve to finance his party's program. He also claims that he will streamline government ministries, which he called "inefficient".

The program also promises a halt to the rise in home prices, and even a decline, something that recent governments have failed in. "A stable government can act to reduce and stabilize home prices, and has done. We built 70,000 apartments in the Buyer Price program, we gave contractors incentives to build, we linked the periphery to the center of the country with roads and infrastructure, we released land in the center of the country, and we transferred IDF bases to the south."

Outlining the means by which he planned to curb home prices, Netanyahu said that a government bond would be issued linked to home prices, with the aim of easing demand in the housing market, that the time taken to obtain a building permit would be cut, and that...