Questions for the Parties on Fiscal Policy and "Citizens' Budgets"

The primary source of revenue for the state and local authorities is taxes and other compulsory payments paid by citizens. Citizens also reimburse businesses, through the purchase of products and services, for the bulk of the compulsory payments that businesses factor into their prices.

Over the past decade, the total compulsory payments made by citizens grew at a significantly faster rate than the growth in their incomes. Thanks to this, between 2015 and 2024, the revenues of the budgetary system—the state budget and the budgets of local authorities—more than doubled, while the gross domestic product grew by 78%.

During this period, the share of public consumption, meaning the consumption expenditures of the government and public institutions, rose from 21.9% to 25.2% of GDP, whereas the share of private consumption, meaning the consumption expenditures of households, fell from 53.2% to 48.9%. In 2015, for every shekel spent on public consumption, citizens spent 2.4 shekels at their own discretion. Nine years later, this ratio dropped to 1.9:1. For comparison, in 2024 the ratio stood at 5:1 in the United States; 2.9:1 in Britain and Russia; 2.4:1 in Germany and China; and 2.3:1 in France.

Hence the first question: What is your party's position regarding this trend? Do you believe citizens should be aware of it?

An additional fact: Between 2015 and 2024, the distribution of public expenditures across ten main fields changed. The relative share of six fields in total expenditures decreased, while the share of four fields increased.

The share of expenditures on education dropped from 18.1% to 14.4%; on health—from 13.3% to 11.6%; on social protection, including expenditures of the National Insurance Institute—from 28.0% to 26.5%; on culture, sport, leisure, and religion—from 3.7% to 2.9%; on environmental protection—from 1.5% to 1.2%; and on public security—from 4.1% to 3.4%. In the middle of the period, in 2020, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of expenditures on health and social protection rose somewhat. The downward trends in the shares of the other fields were consistent.

Conversely, the share of expenditures on defense rose from 15.4% to 20.4%; on economic ventures—from 6.8% to 7.6%; on government and administrative services—from 3.7% to 4.1%; and on debt servicing—from 5.6% to 7.7%. The priority given in 2024 to defense expenditures is understandable in light of the war that began in 2023. However, it should be noted that in 2020 the share of defense expenditures was lower by about a quarter than in 2015—11.6%—whereas the share of economic ventures grew during those same five years by more than double, to 14.1%.

Does your party believe that citizens should know about these changes? What is your position regarding the described trends? Do you think the decline in the share of defense expenditures in the period preceding the war warrants an official review, as does the efficiency of the ventures financed during the period when the share of these expenditures declined?

Will your party support a proposal to legally obligate the government and local authorities to publish on their official websites, concurrently with the submission of the proposed budget for the upcoming year, a summary of the proposal in language understandable to citizens—a "Citizen's Budget"?

I propose that the "Citizen's Budget" be presented on a single page and include two sets of data regarding the proposed budget, compared to the budget execution data of the previous year and the average of the preceding five years: the ratio between the average amount of the main compulsory payments and the average income per capita, and the share of each of the main expenditure fields in the total budget expenditures.