"Putting the Fat Man on a Diet"

01/02/2023 13:24

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In 2003, while serving as Finance Minister under PM Ariel Sharon, and facing a state of economic crisis, Netanyahu explained that the previously awarded generous State child benefits (which mostly impacted Haredi and Arab families) threatened to destroy Israel’s economy, and therefore he was cutting them back drastically. "The cause of this most severe impact and entry into the continuous cycle of poverty is the policy of [providing] excessive child benefits, which has taken whole generations out of the labor force… I want people to have children that they can support… A man can .. bring a family into the world with as many children as he wants, but he needs to understand that he has the primary responsibility to support them, educate them, finance them, take care of their future. He cannot abdicate this responsibility and transfer all or most of it to the state."