What is really happening in the Finance Committee: The struggle for the people behind the numbers

A few months ago, I arrived at a staging area on the Lebanese border. Among the soldiers, I met a reservist who had not worked for a long time. He told me about the economic reality he had fallen into and the gap between the aid he received and the expenses waiting for him at home. Therefore, we expanded the benefits for reservists: we increased the tax credit points and increased the remuneration for those serving with low wages to about 9,600 shekels per month.

On another tour, I met a costume shop owner. A woman who could have stayed abroad, with a successful business and an established life, but chose to immigrate to Israel, raise her children here, and establish her business here. And when the decree of subsidizing imports from abroad arrived, she did not talk to me about numbers. She talked about fear — real fear of what would happen if her entire business were wiped out. I fought against this move in the Knesset. Not once, but twice we stopped it. For her, and for thousands of other small business owners.

In the south and the north, I met dairy farmers who continued to milk under fire; they looked with desperate eyes at a reform that could have wiped out not only their livelihood, but the life's work of their families. Therefore, we stopped the dairy reform.

It does not end there at all. I also met the tourism professionals and the farmers. People whose lives were stopped by the war, but they did not stop fighting for their livelihood. We built a dedicated compensation plan for them, so they could continue to stand on their feet.

In the Finance Committee, I met the heads of the business sector again and again, and they only asked for certainty. They were tired of waiting every time anew for the mercy of the Ministry of Finance. I led a permanent compensation plan in times of emergency, a clear and fast mechanism. One that gives businesses certainty when the country enters a state of emergency.

I also met the residents of Safed, people who live "only" 11 kilometers from the border. On paper, they were not included in the confrontation line, but in reality, they experienced the war up close. Therefore, we expanded the compensation plan to them as well.

In Ashkelon, I came to comfort a bereaved mother whose son fell in Lebanon. When I asked where the protected space (MAMAD) was, they told me there was none. There is only a neighborhood shelter, a run away. Therefore, alongside the fortification budgets, we also ensured tax benefits for the residents of Ashkelon for the first time. Later, we expanded the benefits to the Gaza envelope communities, the confrontation line communities, Nof HaGalil, and other communities that bear the security and national burden day after day.

And while the State of Israel was fighting on several fronts and the Prime Minister was leading the campaign, it was clear to me that the home front also needed stability. When there was a need, we transferred an additional budget for security, and when it was required to pass a state budget in an election year — for the first time since 1999, we passed that too.

In real time, when the big decisions arrived here, we did not look only at numbers. We looked at the people. Because in the end, the Finance Committee is not graphs. It is not tables. It is the people I met along the way. It is the reservist trying to close the month, it is the business owner who chose to build her life right here, it is the dairy farmer who did not give up even when everything was burning around him, it is the tourism professionals, the farmers, the business owners, and everyone who gets up every morning, works hard, and builds the Israeli economy.

The author, Hanoch Milwidsky, is a Knesset member from the Likud party and Chairman of the Finance Committee.