Thursday, January 08, 2015

The city of Bet Shemesh is running out of money, why is that important?

The city of Bet Shemesh has had Charedi leadership (A Charedi mayor and Charedi politicians in most of the key City Council positions) for the past 6 years and it is running out of money. According to a report on Radio Kol Chai the city has a 40 million shekel budget deficit. The mayor is proposing a budget cut of 25 million shekel, the other Charedi parties do not agree.

Why does Bet Shemesh have such a big budget deficit? In Israel city governments get much of their money from property taxes (arnona), especially from businesses, factories, industrial areas etc. The rates for them are much higher and they provide the money to support the functioning of the city government. Unfortunately, Bet Shemesh in recent years has seen an explosion of building of residential apartments, but NO industrial business areas. The city has grown in population (especially young population) with little to no growth in business leading to the budget issues. All of the children need city services such as Ganim, schools, etc., however there has been no corresponding increase in revenues. In addition, many of the people moving in pay little arnona as they are learning in kollel and get up to a 90% discount.

This is no surprise as for the past few years the Charedi leadership has singled out Bet Shemesh as the place to build affordable housing for the growing Charedi population. This has led to an impressive array of new housing developments but none of the supporting infrastructure that is needed especially in terms of business and industrial areas. As I have said previously (The cash machine that is the Israeli government) Charedim as a group view the government very differently then other citizens. They view the government as a cash machine, give us money and leave us alone. The budget is a zero sum game, whatever we can save and get for us great whatever doesn't go to us is basically lost. This is bad when they are a minor party but is a disaster when they are in power. This is what scares the average Israeli most. In 20 years the Charedi parties may very well be the biggest parties in Israel, and therefore would control the government. What economic policies would they enact (more money for Yeshivos, Avreichim etc.) and where will the money to pay for it come from?

Hat Tip: Life In Israel

1 comment:

bluke said...

It's called cognitive dissonance. As things grind to a halt, people cling to their beliefs and aspirations more strongly even in the presence of evidence that things don't work. Sadly there is less money but the chareidim will mostly cling to their ideology even more strongly. An easily-found example on the internet:

"For example, Marian Keech (real name: Dorothy Martin) was the leader of a UFO cult in the 1950s. She claimed to get messages from
extraterrestrials, known as The Guardians, through automatic writing. Like the Heaven's Gate folks forty years later, Keech and her followers, known as The Seekers or The Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, were waiting to be picked up by flying saucers. In Keech's prophecy, her group of eleven was to be saved just before the earth was to be destroyed by a massive flood on December 21, 1954. When it became evident that there would be no flood and the Guardians weren't stopping by to pick them up, Keech became elated. She said she'd just received a telepathic message from the Guardians saying that her group of believers had spread so much light with their unflagging faith that God had spared the world from the cataclysm (Levine 2003: 206).

More important, the Seekers didn't abandon her. Most became more devoted after the failed prophecy. (Only two left the cult when the world didn't end.) "Most disciples not only stayed but, having made that decision,
were now even more convinced than before that Keech had been right all along....Being wrong turned them into true believers (ibid.)." Some people will go to bizarre lengths to avoid inconsistency between their cherished beliefs and the facts."