The Knesset today passed by a narrow margin a bill increasing Israel’s current budget by 110,000,000 Israeli pounds ($61,600,000). Only the coalition parties voted for the bill. There was no action on an additional proposal by the Finance Ministry and the Treasury for the levy of a compulsory loan from property owners in the form of advance tax payments.
One of the groups in the coalition government, the Progressive Party, opposes the compulsory loan feature of the new budget. The issue will be taken up again next week when Prime Minister Ben-Gurion has returned from Europe.
The Government’s financial authorities anticipate that 40,000,000 pounds ($22,000,000) of the new monies will be borrowed abroad. The entire, additional 110,000,000-pound budget is needed, the Knesset was told, for security purposes, immigrant housing, slum clearance, expansion of water resources and stepped-up industrial production.
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