The law allows for a considerable delay in this particular case – beyond anything ordinarily permissible.
But the longer the economy is forced to conform to an irrelevant, makeshift arrangement in lieu of an apportioning of resources that is appropriate to our current situation, the greater the very tangible resultant damage will be. The Basic Law, our de-facto constitution, stipulates that the state budget must be annually approved by December 31. The outgoing coalition didn’t manage this. The legal remedy for such an impasse is to divide the previous approved budget (in our case, the 2008 budget, devised in 2007) into 12 portions and spend each one during each month in which no new budget exists. The immediate upshot is that no new spending or policy switches are possible, not even the capital injection so fundamental to the Treasury’s much-touted stimulus package.

In effect, our economy becomes reduced to auto-pilot basics, while the local and global economies are in utter upheaval. A budget concocted in times of economic glut is patently unsuitable for combating deepening recession. But there is currently no way to avoid the constrictions of 2008’s now meaningless budget. This, of course, is the rosy scenario. Things could get further entangled, and this at a time when unemployment is spiraling, enterprises are teetering, growth is stymied and financial markets are gripped by a crisis of confidence.
Then, of course, there are the fiscally irresponsible expenditures that haggling with extortionist small Knesset factions would impose. Shas demands that child allowances be hiked by NIS1.5b., while the UTJ wants NIS 400m. for its educational institutions. That’s just for starters. Many demands, like child allowances, come in the guise of generosity to society’s have-nots. Pro forma it’s laudable except that charity at the expense of anyway hard-pressed taxpayers is counterproductive. These sorts of handouts won’t alleviate poverty. Growth and derivative job creation are indispensable.