The new SDP parliamentary leader this Wednesday blamed the socialist government of the last seven years for impoverishing the country, while the prime minister countered that the country had drawn closer to Europe with its leaders again.
At the start of the State of the Union debate and during his plenary debut as leader of the SDP Parliament, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento also urged the government to say when it will return the budget surplus it is collecting due to rising inflation.
“The Portuguese are starving and the state is getting fat, this is the socialist economy that you are trying to hide,” he accused.
In his response, António Costa pointed out that the measures designed by the government to support families and companies already exceed the amount of excess VAT collected and that only the minimum amount of taxes allowed by law is levied on fuel.
“When you ask when we will return it? Answer: already returned,” he replied.
The economist began with a general assessment of governments led by António Costa: “His seven years in government can be summed up in one word: impoverishment,” he defended.
In support of his statement, Miranda Sarmento believes that positive economic growth figures for 2021 and 2022 are “just a recovery from the fall in GDP in 2020”, that the country is one of those that “later recovered from the pandemic” and that in 2023 year “will have one of the lowest growth rates” in the European Union.
On the other hand, he accused the government of “cutting the salaries of civil servants and pensioners by 14 percent” by not updating their incomes in line with rising inflation.
“This is the socialist economy that you are trying to hide,” he accused.
António Costa compared the data of the PSD parliamentary leader with GDP growth of 20% between 2015 and 2019 and, regarding wages, recalled the economic thinking of Miranda Sarmento in a recent book he signed.
“It will help us next time what is your effective economic thinking: should civil servants really raise their wages or, as you recently wrote, proposes to freeze wage costs in public administration,” he criticized, receiving a storm of applause. from the PS bench.
As for the increase in tax revenue due to inflation, which, according to Miranda Sarmento, will reach at least 3 billion euros by the end of the year, the prime minister also made other calculations.
“VAT revenues increased compared to 2019 by 1,300 million euros. The package of measures already taken to reduce taxes and support families and companies is 1,682 million euros, which is more than the increase in tax revenues from VAT,” he said. indicated.
Regarding the fires, which he said were not a “partisan affair”, the SDP leader acknowledged that “people and homes are better protected today than they were in 2017, but the forest is worse protected”, blaming the government for not taking action. measures. The promised forest reform.
“If PS had managed the country as well as tactics and propaganda during these three decades, the country would be the richest in the world today,” he said.
Also on this occasion, Costa disputed the Social Democrat’s statements, advising him to “pay more attention to the rural world” in order to follow what has been done since 2018 in the field of rural prevention.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
