A bloated budget

The defense budget has never been so large. We have now reached NIS 60 billion ($16 billion), dozens of percentage points higher than five years ago. From time to time the Defense Ministry tries to use the budgeted funds to increase defense officials’ salaries beyond the pay raises enjoyed by all public servants. If there was really a problem and the ministry lacked funds to draft reserve soldiers each month or properly arm them, why would the ministry be raising employees’ salaries-

All that aside, there is also the issue of the government decision compelling the IDF to open its books to the Finance Ministry for oversight. The IDF has done everything it can to weaken the decision, and has yet to open its books. In this regard, we need to remind the IDF that Israel is a country that has an army, and not the other way around. In a democratic country, the military does what the government tells it to do.

Tremendous needs are nothing new. Israel today allocates more funds to meet these tremendous needs than it has ever done in the past. Also, if these needs are so tremendous, why doesn’t the defense establishment use its budget more efficiently? This cannot be done exclusively through self-regulation. The IDF should be supervised by an external body, and the Finance Ministry is best suited for this task.

Such supervision would first and foremost benefit the IDF, which would learn to utilize its resources more efficiently. Secondly, the oversight is a government decision that should be followed. So far, the IDF doesn’t seem to be complying. We should have already begun seeing some cooperation rather than just stonewalling.

The IDF claims that any budget cut would shut down factories, halt tank production and terminate other projects. The Finance Ministry isn’t dictating which projects to terminate; in fact it is giving the IDF money, more money than ever before.

I suspect that the IDF decided to shut down some projects that it doesn’t need anymore, but doesn’t have the courage to say it no longer needs a specific new system and wants to shut down its production line. Instead, it blames the Finance Ministry and turns it into the “bad guy.”

The writer heads an advisory panel for the finance minister.

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