Here in California, we have a 15 billion dollar shortfall. Many proposals have been made to secure the funding, including sales tax increase (temporary), advance loan on lottery receipts, increase in high income state tax. So far, the Republicans have denied any increase, but want to reduce spending. Israel's solution: no funding for religious schools, no exemptions for family members (above 2.1), increased privitization of industry, more efficiency in civil service, AND no benefits to Israeli-Arabs who commit sedition, commit felonies or otherwise undermine the State.

Olmert is leaving the scene, the worst leader in israel's history. Israel would never have been born in 1948 if olmert had led it; it would have been defeated. What will be with barak, israel's most decorated soldier.Something is wrong here, the IDF is hiding something. Look at the facts. He botched the withdrawal from lebanon. He refused to resign after winograd blamed olmert, now he says the budget is a vote of confidence and he then backs down. Olmert makes barak look pathetic. Barak should retire to his tel aviv towers as 0lmert will retire and never serve again.Since 2000, he is a failure and acts like olmert. Israel's enemies do not fear Barak,whereas they feared sharon, dayan, and yaalon.

Something has to be said when he is saying "Look, vote for this, or quit the cabinet." Doesn't sound like too many liked the budget-or wait--the budget and Olmert. Seriously though, it sounds like he's seizing the opportunity to purge the cabinet of those who differ.

Ynet, this is not an informative article, only a superficial and populistic one. Instead of talking about how everyone voted for or against the budget, you should also explain what are the componenents of this budget and what percentage of resources is allocated to each ministry. For instance, this is not clear if the Defense budget will be cut or not. The same for the Education ministry.

disgusting. ohlmert should not have taken part in the discussion. wonder how many envelopes were handed out so that the other ministers would approve something they thought was wrong.

Why tar them all with the same brush? Ministers in Labor and Shas voted against the budget and Mofaz who is not only a minister but is also in Kadima voted against it. We will see if Mofaz gets fired today. Mike

Yishai said all that he did but still remains in the Government !

What a disaster! and by one vote! This was a G-d given opportunity to bring down the government! Why wasn't it taken?!

It's not whether so and so gets fired or not today. Just the fact that PM has to resort to such tactics to get anything through the cabinet is not a good sign. He may or may not go through with it. If one of the cabinet ministers gets fired, you can expect some many pointed questions when it comes time to form the next government. Its a small country and people remember things like that. One thing is for sure, there won't be any reforms while this man or very possibly his party stays in office. What would those who found the country say of its current state today?