Premier Levi Eshkol announced in a radio “fireside talk” last night that the Government has cut its outlays by 100,000,000 pounds ($33,000,000) as part of a new austerity program to curb inflation and spiraling prices.
He also announced cancelation of tax increases on a number of products and a 25,000,000 pound ($8,300,000) subsidy to help maintain prices for a number of essential foods. The subsidy will permit cutbacks on the prices of milk, eggs, vegetables and oil.
The radio chat, first in an announced series, was an effort by the Premier to reassure the nation that the Government was doing its part in the battle against inflation, He also sought.to encourage a growing popular movement for voluntary waiving by workers of wage increases which Cabinet members also have decided to emulate.
He also announced a cut of 25,000,000 pounds ($8,300,000) to 30,000,000 pounds ($10,000,000) in indirect taxes which will cancel boosts in the price of cooking gas and oil. He pledged there would be no further tax increases this year but added that this did not include service fee increases, such as train fares and postal service charges.
SEES HOPE IN VOLUNTARY WILLINGNESS TO FOREGO WAGE INCREASES
The Premier promised that sums voluntarily renounced by wage earners in institutions would revert back to the institutions to improve their financial position and their services. He appealed to his nation-wide audience with these words: “If you — each and every one of you — really care for tomorrow, do something for it today. “
The Premier said the planned tax increases had been made necessary by increasing labor costs but that he now saw hope for a change. He said “egotism is yielding place to a sense of national responsibility, ” a reference to the expressions by both groups and individuals of willingness to forego in part wages and wage increases.
Leaders of two opposition parties, the Ben-Gurion Israel Workers Party and Gahal, the Herut-Liberal Alignment, complained that the Premier was holding back his anti-in flation moves from Parliament and saving them for his broadcasts. They forced postponement of a discussion in Parliament this afternoon of the proposed national budget of more than $1,500,000,000 for the fiscal year starting April 1, which was introduced in Parliament last week, The proposed budget provides for direct and indirect tax increases, of nearly $87,000,000.
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