Israel braces for socialist Keynesianism

The Israeli economy is in relatively decent shape. Israeli conservative mortgage market proved so far immune to Michael Milken’s machinations, and no US-Eurozone type bubble has developed. Despite this fine situation, the government introduced a $6 billion aid package. Every Jew, from child to pensioner, will pay $1,000 to support well-connected companies. This pork-barrel plan is a payoff to leftist voters. It consists of enormously stupid investments in transportation, schools, and tourism.
In an economy supposedly threatened with recession, the last thing we want is to literally bury money in roads where none are urgently needed. Israel’s problem with schools is not so much the lack of classrooms as the lack of competent teachers. State investments in the tourist industry are an endeavor worth the Soviet gerontocracy: the tourist sector is always the most vibrant, private, and free sector of the economy. The Israeli tourist industry suffers only from Palestinian terrorism and high labor costs and taxes, which cannot be cured with aid.
Netanayahu lambasted the economic plan, though it runs along his own hardcore Keynesian prescriptions.
To counter the recession, Israel needs to do only one thing: let the enterprising Jews work freely. Cut out—destroy—the red tape, lay off 95 percent of the bureaucrats, and get the government’s hands off the economy.