The work plan designed by the ruling party includes on its agenda the presentations of the secretaries of the Ministry of Economy and other ministries in charge of the main resources established in the Budget.
In this context, the first to disembark will be the Secretaries of the Treasury, Carlos Guberman, and of Finance, Pablo Quirno, two officials who are close confidants of the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo.
For now, neither Minister Caputo nor the president of the Central Bank are expected to attend. Santiago Bausili, as demanded by Union for the Homeland, according to parliamentary sources told Noticias Argentinas.
There will be eight Tuesdays where officials will attend and then the ruling will be issued, which will be sought to be approved on November 25 in the House of Representatives and in the first half of December in the Senate.
The work plan was agreed upon last Wednesday at a meeting held by the Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos; the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo; the Deputy Chief of Staff, Lisandro Catalán; the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín Menem, and the heads of the Budget Committees of Congress, José Luis Espert, and Ezequiel Atauche, of the Senate.
For this reason, this week the president of the Budget Committee, José Luis Espert, will hold some informal conversations with the dialogue blocs to organize the treatment of the law on expenses and resources.
He will also seek to find out what the willingness of the parties most friendly to the Government is to vote on this initiative.
What happens is that for the ruling party it is essential that the blocks of the PRO, the UCR, Encuentro Federal, Innovación Federal and the Coalición Cívica support the “law of laws”, since the LLA only has 39 legislators of its own.
In addition, La Libertad Avanza has other strong allies such as the MID – a branch of the ruling party – which has 3 members, 3 from the Independencia Block, and one from CREO.
With these permanent allies, the number of legislators reaches 44, which means that it needs about 85 legislators to reach 129 to open the debate and have a majority to approve this spending and resources project for 2025, which is central to the Executive Branch.
To do this, changes will have to be made to the budget, since each of the negotiating blocs has different demands, but at the same time the government is willing to introduce some reforms but not to alter the central axes of this proposal, which is to maintain a fiscal surplus in primary spending.
The Government projected fiscal balance, inflation of 18.3 percent, GDP growth of 5 percent and an average dollar of 1,207 pesos as its central goal.
The PRO demands that the Supreme Court ruling be complied with and that the Budget be established, which will give 2.95 to the City of Buenos Aires instead of 1.40 as stated in the project sent by the National Government, according to the president of that bench, Cristian Ritondo.
Radicalism, Encuentro Federal, and the Civic Coalition, have as one of their main demands that the University budget be increased, since the Government assigned 3.8 billion pesos when the Universities are demanding 7.2 million pesos.
They will also ask that the Teacher Financing Law approved during the administration of former President Néstor Kirchner be maintained, which requires 6 percent of GDP to be allocated to the education system.
Another point will be the ratification of the DNU on the pension adjustment mechanism contemplated in the Budget, but there both the UCR, EF and the Civic Coalition.
From Unión por la Patria (UxP), the president of the bloc, Germán Martínez, warned on his social networks that they are looking for a “deep debate and that all officials come, starting with the Minister of Economy and the president of the BCRA.”
The agreements between La Libertad Avanza and the dialogue blocs are not only essential to having the votes in the chamber, but also to having the majority in the Budget and Finance Commission.
This parliamentary body has 48 deputies, of which the LLA has 6 members and MID 2, the PRO 7; UCR 6; 2 Federal Encounter; Federal Innovation 2; Production and Work 1; and Civic Coalition 1; while Union for the Fatherland has 20 and the left 1.
To have a majority, he must gather 25 signatures, which means he will have to get all the blocks that want the ruling party to have a Budget and not use the same one that was extended by Alberto Fernández’s Government to sign, even if only in partial dissent.
Another point that will be a cause for debate is that of tax expenditures, that is, the taxes that are not collected for belonging to industrial promotion programs or for privileged retirements, as in the case of judges, which for the year 2025 reach $27,025,062.8 million, which is equivalent to 3.54% of the GDP.
The 2025 Budget also includes total current and capital expenditures of 117,554,749 million pesos, with an economic growth of 5 percent.
The economic growth will be driven by a 6.2 percent increase in industry, a 6.7 percent increase in trade, a 9.9 percent increase in investment, and a 4.5 percent increase in private consumption.
National tax collection and social security contributions are estimated to reach $175,035,832 million in 2025, which will be 37.6% higher than the figure projected for 2024.
By Silvia Rajcher, from NA agency
Source: Ambito
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