The Knesset passed the 2007 state budget late Wednesday night, with 63 in favor, 31 opposed, and 6 abstaining. Knesset members debated the 2007 state budget late into the night, with the coalition assured a majority in the vote in the second and third readings. The accompanying Economic Arrangements Law was passed 60-26 Wednesday afternoon.

The coalition parties have agreed to vote for the NIS 294.5 billion budget, and United Torah Judaism has agreed to abstain rather than vote against it. Despite the agreement, however, a few coalition MKs said they would abstain in the budget vote.

MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) said she planned to abstain because "the 2007 budget is a [Likud chairman Benjamin] Netanyahu budget in every way. It doesn't have a different economic agenda, and it has intensive privatization of social services, which a social-democratic party must not accept."

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MK Marina Solodkin (Kadima) said before the vote that she would abstain unless her proposal to cut NIS 60 million in the welfare-to-work Wisconsin plan was adopted. MK Yitzhak Galantee (Pensioners), who voted against the Economic Arrangements Law, also threatened to vote against
the budget.

Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson gave a positive account of the economy. "We have a growing economy," he told the Knesset. "There are more jobs. Unemployment is decreasing and the trends have remained positive."

Five MKs abstained in the vote on the second and third readings of the Economic Arrangements Law yesterday afternoon. Galantee was the only coalition member to vote against it, and Yachimovich, Solodkin and UTJ MKs Yaakov Litzman, Meir Porush and Shmuel Halpert abstained.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who is also Labor Party chairman, stepped out of the plenum during the vote on a reservation to the Economic Arrangements Law that he proposed, despite the government's opposition, to push the third increase in the minimum wage up to July instead of waiting until December. However, he voted in line with the government to continue the Wisconsin plan.

Yachimovich voted against the government on three clauses in the Economic Arrangements Law, including those regarding the Wisconsin plan and the deferral of the third increase in the minimum wage.

"The Economic Arrangements Law must leave this world," she said. "There is no reason for me to change my positions in the plenum. There are specific fundamental and pointed issues, and on them it was unreasonable to abstain. Therefore I voted against them."