Knesset Finance Committee chairman MK Nissan Slomiansky (Jewish Home) warned at the start of the committee meeting in which Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) presented the 2015 budget on Monday that “we won’t be a rubber stamp to pass the budget.”

“If needed the debate on the budget will continue even into January,” Slomiansky continued, as tensions around the new budget and Lapid’s 0% VAT bill continue to boil over.

In presenting the budget, Lapid termed it “the most social budget in recent years,” saying that “without raising taxes it increases the social budgets by more than ten billion shekels ($2.6 billion).”

Noting on the negative growth in the third quarter of 2014, Lapid remarked it was “a result of (Operation) Protective Edge. A quarter in which for over 50 days missiles fell here. We stand behind our forecasts of growth.”

Slomiansky commented that “due to the delays in presenting the budget to the Knesset and the arguments in the coalition, we aren’t left with enough time to discuss the budget, and I hereby announce that we will hold in-depth discussions and hold them five days a week.”

The MK called on Lapid and other coalition leaders to “reach agreements and start working on the budget.”

Finance Ministry Budget Director Amir Levy detailed that the 2015 budget will reach a total of 333.3 billion shekels ($87 billion).

Levy added that would be so “despite that the allowed expenses in 2015 according to the law are 332.1 (billion shekels). That is to say an appropriation of 1.2 billion shekels will be needed, and that we will bring from, among other places, the reforms in the Basic Law.”