Last update - 00:00 11/12/2006
Hirschson: Welfare system is failure, taught people not to work
By Haaretz Services
Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson Monday declared the failure of the welfare system, saying that it has taught people not to work.
Speaking to the annual Israel Business Conference, Hirschson promised to introduce his new model for negative income tax in the coming month.
According to Hirschson, welfare stipends have not helped solve the poverty issue for "those who could be part of the workforce." Instead, he said, "they taught people not to go out and work."
Referring to the economic gaps in Israeli society, the minister said, "enough has been said about the gaps in Israel's society. I could repeat the horror stories, the depth of the poverty."
"But I will do all in my power to try and reduce these gaps because that is why I was elected."
The minister suggested education as a solution to economic problems.
"Above all, lies education," said Hirschson. "Education is the clearest economic tool we can use to achieve growth. It is the best tool to narrow the economic gap. It is a savings plan, that will give the highest yields both on a personal and on a national level."
The Finance Minister said a pedadogical reform needs to be implemented in the education system, a proactive reform rather than one based on "plugging holes, putting out fires or just adding unnecessary budget expenditures"
Like a regular business company in a developing Western country, the Israeli economy has gotten "stuck on the way up, in moments which test its strength and stability," he continued. "There have been many of these moments in the last few years, and in this last year especially, and we have surpassed most of these challenges with success."
Hirschson said that the "economic policy effective in Israel today, is a good policy which I will continue to enforce. Our path has proven its effectiveness. You, the sellers, the foreign investors, you agree."
But he cautioned that "we are in a place from which it would be easy to fall, and hard to recover from."
"The secret to our future success needs to be long term planning, adding that an inconsistent economic policy will cause investors to leave Israel.