VILNIUS — Following President Dalia Grybauskaitė’s veto threat, the Lithuanian government is looking for ways to plug the 600 million litai (€174 million) hole to keep the planned 9.5 percent deficit.
Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said his government would heed Grybauskaite’s warning and that the cabinet was up to the challenge of finding he money somehow, but gave little indication of how it will accomplish this.
“The numbers are high, we have to find out how to fix this 600 million litai problem,” Kubilius told the press Wednesday.
The governments draft budget lowered benefits for disabled people and increased the tax for the national social insurance fund SoDra. Increasing the tax alone would have earned the government another 400 million litai (€115 million), the Ministry of Finance predicted.
However, Grybauskaite said she would not allow the law to pass her office if there was no compensation for citizens in return.
What about bringing all the fighters back from Iraq and Afghanistan that are protecting LT homeland security over there? I think the mission there is quite costly and could save the budget some money.
However the LT government should think more like how more money could come in! In the short term not very probable but a major invenstment in education, research and science could build the future for the country, since it hasnt any ressources except its people. But sadly in this was an area of cost cuts right from the beginning…
Three letters: IMF.