After nearly two weeks of deliberations, the Cabinet voted today to cut the defense budget by IL 500 million. The amount is less than the IL 750 million urged by the Treasury but more than was wanted by Defense Minister Shimon Peres who had argued that the defense establishment could not afford to make any-cuts without impairing its capabilities.
The half billion Pound reduction was proposed by Minister of Commerce and industry Haim Barlev, a former Chief of Staff. Finance Minister Yehoshua Rabinowitz has been urging all ministries to reduce their budgets voluntarily to absorb inflationary price rises. According to Rabinowitz, the inflation rate is running at 31 percent instead of the 25 percent anticipated when the budget was drafted. The problem of the defense budget was passed on to the ministerial defense committee last week. When the latter was unable to reach a decision, Premier Yitzhak Rabin referred the matter back to the full Cabinet for today’s action.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
