Javier Milei’s 2025 Budget crosses a minefield in Congress

The governors they are restless. Javier Milei presents this Sunday the Budget 2025 in the House of Representatives and were not summoned. May Pact failed, it did not even get off the ground, as a format of rapprochement between the Casa Rosada and the provinces. The provincial leaders cast their votes in Congress for the approval of the law Bases and for the validity of DNU 70/2023 but then there was no response to the material claims for public works, the transportation compensation fund or the debts of the Nation with the pension funds of the provinces.

Next Tuesday night, the President will host a dinner in honor of the veto club in Olivos. These are the “87 heroes” who protected themselves with their votes Javier Milei’s veto of the retirement mobility law. The head of state will serve them a barbecue to try to screw them that collective of La Libertad Avanza, the PRO and five deputies of the brand new libertarian UCR which is now expanding with the return of Carolina Píparo to the official bloc.

It will be an open-air celebration of the new caste and a sign also for all those governors who, within the framework of the debate on the budget and allocations for the provincesaspire to have a hot dish served in Olivos.

Javier Milei with the caste

Milei He rolled up his sleeves and personally received the radical deputies who protected his veto and also allied senators who, however, voted the next day against the DNU of funds reserved for the SIDE. The Casa Rosada does not have a stable cast of allies. A deficit, not fiscal, that it will have to settle in any case for the 2025 Budget to advance through the minefield of Congress.

They are not yet 129 votes needed to protect the project of “law of laws” that exalts fiscal balance and the reduction of the State. An axiom where the provinces are also an adjustment variable in a decision-making scheme that executes Luis “Toto” Caputo and which is defined in the iron triangle composed of The President, Karina Milei and Santiago Caputo.

Meanwhile, the governors in favor of dialogue are still waiting for a meeting from the Casa Rosada. Guillermo Francos resumed official activity last week while Patricia Bullrich expands in the Cabinet.

The Minister of Security was in charge of bringing together the five radical deputies who accompanied her in her campaign as a presidential candidate for Juntos. She is Mauricio Macri’s main rival in the PRO whom libertarian circles accuse of trying to destabilize Francos in the Cabinet and Martín Menem in the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies.

Tonight, the entire Cabinet will accompany Milei in the presentation within the framework of the Budget and Finance Committee that will take place in the Chamber of Deputies.

Once again, La Libertad Avanza sends a project to Congress without having the necessary number of voters to approve it. That majority to approve the 2025 Budget will depend on the governors. A sector that, through the PRO, the UCR and the provincial parties, has already granted a third of the Chamber of Deputies to support the veto on retirement mobility and that in the next few days will be put to the test again with the veto of the educational financing law.

Budget seeks votes

That base of 87 votes, and the “leading case” of the law Bases approved with 142 votes in favor, will be the springboard for La Libertad Avanza to go out and build consensus in the House of Representatives for the Budget 2025. With the precedent that the Casa Rosada had to agree to the governors’ demand to restore Income Tax to be able to approve the Bases law.

The ruling party managed to advance in the lower house, contrary to what had happened in extraordinary sessions, with the support of dialogue-oriented sectors of the opposition such as the PRO, part of the radicalism, Hacemos Coalición Federal and the Interbloque de Innovación Federal.

In addition to the head of the Buenos Aires government and the PRO governors, Jorge Macri (CABA), Rogelio Frigerio (Entre Rios) and Ignacio Torres (Chubut), Javier Milei In the last session, he added the support of the deputies of the Tucuman Jaldo and the abstention of Federal Innovation, which reports to the leaders, to shield his veto Hugo Passalacqua (Missions), Gustavo Saenz (Salta), Rolando Figueroa (Neuquen) and Alberto Weretilneck (Río Negro). They are joined by the Sanjuanino Marcelo Orrego and the puntano Claudio Poggiwhich orbit the residual league of Together for Change.

At the UCR, with the exception of Maximilian Pullaro (Santa Fe), both Alfredo Cornejo (Mendoza), Gustavo Valdes (Corrientes) and Leandro Zdero (Chaco), these governors also make up the dialoguing platoon with the Government, just like the Peronist from Cordoba Martin Llaryora.

Governors’ Complaint

However, last Tuesday, Governors from all over the country released a critical document against the government of Javier Milei and demanded against funding cuts, pension funds and the removal of transport subsidieswhile taking a position on the bill of Budget 2025.

There they requested “the fulfillment of current transfers and the debts corresponding to the non-transferred funds, and the distribution of the Transport Compensation Fund that is financed specifically through the Fuel Tax and that, however, has been interrupted.”

In this context, they took advantage of the opportunity to take a stand in the face of the Budget debate and sent a message to the Casa Rosada. “The Argentine provinces advocate for a more equitable distribution between the Nation and the provinces of the shared resources and will seek the appropriate instruments to be able to face their responsibilities, as established by the National Constitution, with the corresponding resources,” they said. In the same vein, the governors from all over the country requested “compliance with respect to the financing and/or execution of public works in provincial territories,” they added.