Chapter IX
Our Economy
We are on the economic right: a free market, competition, and low taxes. We will work to lower the cost of living, to ease the burden on those who work, start businesses, and invest, and to make government focused and efficient.
The Chachamim taught (Berachos 8a): “Greater is one who benefits from his own labor than one who fears Heaven.” Economic independence is one of the foundations of the Jewish outlook on life. Sound policy creates as many opportunities as possible to earn a dignified living, and even to give tzedakah and support Torah study. It helps the poor break out of the cycle of poverty and stand on their own feet, which the Rambam calls the level of tzedakah “above which there is none.” Those who genuinely cannot support themselves will have a safety net that does not perpetuate dependence and poverty. Beyond our concern for the individual, we bear a responsibility and a duty to advance the material world as a whole, just as Hashem placed Adam in the Garden of Eden “to cultivate it and to protect it” (Bereishis 2:15). This responsibility finds expression in the economic sphere as well, and obligates us, as a political party, to formulate and present a comprehensive economic policy.
What We Will Change
1. Opening the Economy to Competition: Eliminating unnecessary tariffs, import quotas, and other barriers, and expanding recognition of the standards of developed countries, to lower the cost of living. The requirement that importers pay VAT in cash before their goods are sold will be replaced with an accounting entry in their periodic VAT returns.
2. Reforming the Car Market: Expanding parallel imports, removing barriers to importing spare parts, and opening servicing and repairs to competition, while maintaining safety standards.
3. Competition Between Seaports: Privatizing the Port of Ashdod, removing restrictions on port operations, and enabling all ports to compete on equal terms.
4. Opening Agriculture to Competition: Abolishing the powers of the agricultural production and marketing boards to plan and restrict production and marketing, while safeguarding public health, food safety, and animal and plant life. The laws and regulations that restrict activity in the agricultural sector will be re-examined.
5. Increasing the Supply of Housing: Shortening and simplifying planning and building-permit procedures, and expanding development rights in high-demand areas and along main public transportation routes.
6. Expanding Competition in Healthcare: Removing barriers that limit the number of doctors, hospitals, clinics, and medical devices such as MRI machines. Medical licenses from countries with high medical standards will be more widely recognized.
7. Reducing and Simplifying Regulation: Reducing the need for licenses and permits and expanding the use of self-certification, starting from the principle that economic activity is permitted and it is the state that must justify any restriction.
8. Freedom of Professional Association: Ensuring that no person or business is compelled to join a labor union, an employers’ organization, or a professional association, to be represented by one, or to pay one. Protection from damages claims arising from strikes will be limited to labor disputes within the workplace itself, and will not apply to strikes against the policies of the government or the Knesset.
9. Reforming Child Benefits and Assistance for Children with Special Needs: Working to strengthen the earning capacity of Charedi families, so as to reduce dependence on welfare and support a gradual change in the child-benefit system, while examining a transition to more targeted and effective ways of supporting families. Hatzibur HaCharedi will also work to adapt the assistance given to children with special needs, replacing direct payments to parents with a broad and flexible package of treatments and services tailored to each child.
10. Encouraging Workforce Participation: Conditioning welfare benefits, service subsidies, and discounts on arnona (municipal property tax) on full use of the recipient’s earning capacity, subject to appropriate exceptions and excluding those intended for people who are unable to work. This follows the Torah’s principle, “You shall surely help with him” (Shemos 23:5): help goes together with a person’s own effort.
11. Simplifying and Reducing Taxes, Including Capital Gains Tax: Supporting a simple, flat, and transparent tax system, and eliminating loopholes and sector-specific tax benefits that lack clear justification, so that tax rates can be lowered. Capital gains tax will be reduced to 20 percent, to encourage savings and investment.
12. A Focused and Efficient Government: Merging duplicate activities, discontinuing unjustified programs, expanding online government services, and transferring activities that the state need not carry out itself to the private sector and to civil society. The public-sector workforce will be adjusted gradually to changing needs, primarily through natural turnover, the abolition of tenure, and opening recruitment to outside candidates, while maintaining continuity in public services.