Kalousek: cuts to social benefits could save 11 billion crowns next year

Incoming finance minister Miroslav Kalousek says that cuts to social benefits could save the state 11 billion crowns in 2011. Speaking on the same programme on Czech Television, the deputy TOP 09 chairman said that systemic modifications that the coalition wants to make to health and social benefits over the coming years could double that amount. One of those cuts involves childbirth allowances, which the coalition will likely attempt to limit to the first child of parents with income of less than 2.4 times the subsistence minimum. Mr Kalousek said it was absurd that even the wealthiest Czechs currently have the right to social allowances when a child is born to them. He also said that he wants to cancel the State Fund for Housing Development and the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure, which he called an ulcer on the state’s economic management.