BICOM

The leading party in the opposition  has launched a campaign which it said intends to expose the government’s imposition of “hidden taxes” ahead of coalition and Knesset debates to agree the state budget.

At a press conference yesterday, Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni said the recent media focus on issues such as the so-called ‘submarine affair,’ the Regulation Bill, and corruption scandals have distracted the public’s attention from the government’s economic failure.

Herzog said: “Most of the public aren’t experts on submarines… Most of the public wake up in the morning with debts, with an overdraft, with payments, with massive expenses on almost everything.”

Zionist Union has produced a video featuring MK Manuel Trajtenberg, an economics professor, who headed a committee appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which recommended reforms in the aftermath of the 2011 mass social protests. In the video Trajtenberg accused the government of “continuing fraud – the hidden taxes fraud,” whereby although the government claims to be reducing taxes, the public is paying increasing prices for fuel, after-school care and many other essential items.

Also speaking at the press conference, Livni said that “the Zionist Union is going on the offensive” and intends “to reveal to the public what’s hidden in the budget: the hidden costs the public pays every day when sending a kid to day care, when looking for an apartment, when shopping at the supermarket”.

The government has begun preliminary talks over the annual state budget and has 25 days before it needs to present and pass a budget in the Knesset. However, the government is entitled to ask for a three-month extension. Failure to pass the budget is considered to be a no-confidence vote in the government.

Zionist Union continues to perform poorly in polls, trailing not only Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud Party by some distance, but also Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which itself ran on a socio-economic agenda in the 2013 general election.