Without bearing any expertise on the matter and without knowledge of all the details of how this is supposed to work exactly, I will still comment with my initial thoughts on the latest battle in Knesset.
As far as I understand it, in what is supposedly an effort to effect a decline in housing prices, the government is trying to pass what is called the "arnona law". Every city collects municipal taxes from its residents, and from businesses located within municipal borders. This arnona revenue is meant to be the bulk of any city's revenue to be used for funding garbage collections, maintenance around the city, education, activities, and whatnot. Cities collect one fee for residential properties and much higher fees from commercial properties. It seems that some cities choose to focus more on developing commercial property and build less residential, so that they can collect more arnona at the higher, commercial, rates. This supposedly causes housing prices to skyrocket due to a shortage of available housing. And there are some cities and towns that collect very nicely and are considered wealthy cities, while other cities and towns are poor with a lot of residents paying discounted arnona rates along with little commercial properties in their environs.
This supposed discrepancy is behind the arnona law. The arnona law would create a fund in which the wealthier cities in Israel would have to deposit a portion of the arnona revenues they collected (I dont know what the percentages are) and that fund would then distribute monies to the poorer cities to help "narrow the gap". This would also affect housing prices as it would somehow incentivize cities to build more residential housing, cutting down the shortage of supply of housing and stabilizing and lowering the prices.
Just on the face of it, this is socialism. Taking from the wealthier cities to give to the poorer cities. There is nothing right wing about these economics. Just on that alone it makes me think this is a bad idea. We need a freer economy, not a more restrictive one. It makes sense to me, I think, that residents pay their town municipal taxes in order to get municipal services. I dont want my municipal taxes going to pay for another cities issues. I already pay general taxes to the government and dont see why my municipal taxes should be redirected to other cities instead of being used to provide me with more and better services.
If the government wants to bridge the gap, it surely can find ways to do so without taking away my municipal services that I paid for - and cities who have money taken from them will surely cut municipal services.
Additionally, Minister of Finance Betzalel Smotritch has found a way to exclude the cities and towns in Jude and Samaria, over the green line from participating in this. Actually, they will retain the right to receive money from the fund but will be exempted from having to pay into the fund. There were also reports earlier today (though I dont know if anything will come of them) that the Likud is trying to find a way to exclude cities that are Likud strongholds so they do not get hurt by this.
I dont know if my city would receive money from this fund or if it would have to pay money into the fund. Obviously if my town will get money I will be in favor of this program because then I will benefit from it rather than lose from it :-) ... but seriously, this looks like robin Hood or some form of socialism/communism and cant be good. If we take away their revenue from investing in business and employment, what incentive will they have to continue?
It is interesting that the left wing parties are opposed to this saying it is a way to take money from the rich and give it to the Haredim and settlers. That might even be true (partially), but still - isnt that a big part of the left wing agenda? a bit of socialism, sharing the wealth, and all that?
I am open to hearing why my impression is wrong and why you think it is a good program.
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