Opposition head Yesh Atid-Telem Chairman MK Yair Lapid attacked the conduct of the government sworn in yesterday at his Knesset faction meeting.
Lapid attacked the Norwegian Law that he says would pile on more public service salaries and make it more difficult for citizens: "What is the first law that the cut-off government puts on the Knesset? You should know what the expanded Norwegian Law is: More jobs. Dozens more jobs for the most bloated and wasteful coalition in Israeli history. More Knesset Members, more bureaus, more vehicles, more budgets.
"36 ministers and 16 deputy ministers aren't enough for them. They need more jobs, more waste, more expenditures at the taxpayers' expense. Yesterday they stood at the podium and talked about 'the plight of Israeli citizens ...' If their plight was of interest to you, you wouldn't have established this obscenely wasteful government," Lapid attacked.
He said, "When I entered the government in 2013, the first thing I did was reduce the size of the government to 22 ministers. I thought that wasn't enough either. So I passed a law that reduced the size of the government to only 18 ministers. You know why? Because you don't need more. No more than 18 ministers are needed to run the country. They built a government three times the size. It won't cost a billion shekels - it'll cost a lot more, because big money won't go to direct spending, it'll go to the bureaucracy. Such a government is strangling the system. Instead of ten forms to fill out, there will be thirty forms for everything. Every smallest decision will go through an inter-ministerial committee that will take two years for discussions.
"Any permit for sewage in a small shop in a suburb will pass through the Interior Ministry, the Economy Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the Negev and Galilee Development Office, the Community Promotion Office, the Labor Ministry and the Water Resources Office," he added.
"People in distress react differently. They don't forget. It doesn't pass. Self-employed debtors who close shop won't forget those who took the money they don't have and built themselves a luxurious, unnecessary, and detached bureau.
"There's another reason they won't forget: We're here. We won't let them forget. Not the Water Minister, not the Minister for promoting non-existent communities. Not the alternate prime minister who leaves the alternative residence in the alternative motorcade in the direction of his alternative bureau. There's an opposition here, and the opposition isn't going to shut up. It's impossible for the people of Israel to forget how this government undermined their distress during their most difficult time. How at the moment when we needed a lean and humble and frugal government to go to work, they set up a monster with 52 heads with which we're supposed to feed everyone,” he concluded.