“Mobility is not to restore retirements” An official from Javier Milei sent to Congress to defend the adjustment in the elderly began provocatively. These were the words of Alejandro Chiti who was in charge of Anses during the government of Mauricio Macri and today he is part of the political staff of La Libertad Avanza although he does not have any formal position. This Thursday he was one of those in charge of going to the Chamber of Deputies to the Welfare and Social Security commission to defend a questioned DNU that establishes a new formula to calculate the payment of salaries and is aimed at deepening the liquefaction. The other envoy was Mariano De Los Heros, current Executive Director of ANSES, who also defended the AFJP system, questioned the moratoriums, and defended Milei’s decision to suspend transfers to provincial retirement funds.
“The government says that things have to be paid for what they cost. Well, Retirees must be paid what they need to live: $685,000 minimum if they don’t die of hunger” They were crossed by Pablo Anino, an economist from La Izquierda Diario who was one of the speakers of the day.
He route of the debate on retirement mobility is bogged down in Congress. Although the Executive Branch sent officials to present to the Welfare Commission that convened specialists and retirees, it defends its DNU and is determined to block the issue from reaching the chamber.
Los dialogic blocks They were left exposed and empty-handed in the face of the chips that La Libertad Avanza moved. The bloc led by Pichetto called a session to vote on a new mobility and a recomposition percentage, He did not achieve a quorum due to the boycott of the alliance between the government, the PRO and practically the entire UCR. The radicals were later “awarded” with the presidency of the Pension Commission where they hoped to have a leading role with the retirement agenda, until the government decided to give them a unilateral closure without Congress imposing new mobility through DNU 274/24. Now, the ruling party is moving to block the issue on campus preventing him from getting the opinion he needs from the Budget Committee thanks to its president José Luis An expert He refuses any call.
At the beginning of this Thursday’s debate he was present the claim for government layoffs in state agencies. Was Nicolás del Caño PTS-Frente de Izquierda Unidad who carried it, making special mention of “the Anses workers who do a very important job caring for the millions of retirees” and they are facing the closure of many offices throughout the country. The left-wing deputy denounced “While we are meeting here, the Government represses retirees and teachers who are mobilized in front of Congress”. The deputy also spoke Juan Marino of Unión por la Patria who was present at the protest and was gassed by the police operation. The mobilization was accompanied by the deputies of the Left Unity Front, Christian Castillo and Romina del Plá.
The debate around retirements had several aspects this Thursday in the Chamber of Deputies. Much of the debate was carried over by the mobility formula imposed by the DNU by the government and what recomposition retirees need.
Chiti defended DNU 274 that will liquidate retirement benefits due to inflation since July, despite the fact that this calculation will be delayed by two months. In July, June salaries would be paid calculated with May inflation, which will be the last data published. Although the government maintains that, with mobility, retirements have neither to gain nor to lose but to be maintained, this is not what has been happening nor what will happen with the new DNU. The first months with Milei in the Casa Rosada, the liquefaction of retirements was already enormous. And from now on, there will be a 3-month transition from April to June where although they are updated for inflation, at freeze bonuses that were being paid, many will remain on average below the price increase. Retirees will continue to lose.
Journalist Ismael Bermúdez, a retirement specialist, was fulminating with the government and described the DNU of the Milei government as “deceptive”. He explained that “There are 5.4 million retirees who will receive between 0% increase and a maximum of 18% in April”, and what they say that there will be a 27.4% increase in April is a lie. This increase will only reach 2 million retirees, while the other 5.4 million will receive much less or nothing. Among the universe of excluded retirees, Bermúdez explained that there are the 200,000 retired teachers because they have the special regime. On the other hand, there are 1.4 million with 30 years of contributions who receive 82% of the minimum living and mobile wage. There, Milei’s trap is that she did not convene the Salary Council, which is why the basis of that calculation is extremely backward. “They will charge in April 2.11% above what they charged in March” said the Clarín journalist. He added to the list 1.8 million who receive non-contributory pensions and the PUAM, and have the bonus frozen. Finally: “There are 2 million retirees from the minimum of the moratoriums who, since their bonus has been frozen, will have an increase of 18% in April”. Bermúdez contributed that it is “unconstitutional to grant differentiated increases up or down” according to jurisprudence, and pointed out against the Supreme Court that has stopped many cases against the State regarding retirements.
Marcos Wolman, from the National Coordinating Table of Retirees and Pensioners Organizationsargued with the government about the supposed “recomposition” by making a central question: “We have to debate on what basis we are going to do this mobility”. Therein lies another of the keys to the terrible liquefaction that Milei is going to crystallize with her DNU: starting to calculate retirement mobility on a very low calculation basis, consolidating the enormous loss of months of very high inflation.
That is why the claim of many retiree organizations is that of a emergency increase so that the minimum assets cover the basic basket necessary for the subsistence of an elderly person, that there be a proportional recomposition on the various scales and from there, on that basis, that a new mobility that accompanies the cost of living begins to govern. According to Basket prepared by the Semino Senior Citizens Ombudsman’s Officenowadays The minimum asset should start at $685,000.
This was the proposal of Wolman himself, one of the representatives of retiree organizations, and it is also what they do from the Left Front bench with a set of projects that they have presented.
Nicolás del Caño He is one of the authors of these projects and in this Thursday’s commission he came out to Milei officials: “It seems that the justification is that since other governments stole from retirees, we also stole from them” he said in response to Chiti who outlined that justification. Del Caño pointed to the Macri government with which retirees lost 19 points and to the Frente de Todos that refused to include the inflation trigger clause that the Left Front proposed when they voted for mobility under his government. And so the retirees lost a lot again. Pablo Anino, economist for La Izquierda Diario, graphed it with concrete numbers. To retirees with minimal assets, With Milei’s government it is enough for them to live 9 days of the month; with the government of Alberto and Cristina Fernández had enough to live for 11 daysy in 2015 with Cristina Fernández 15 days. This is the desperate situation of the 7 million retirees and retirees.
Del Caño went against the mileist argument that “there is no money”. “Debt speculators obtained more resources in the month of January than the entire retirement system of 7 million” He said remembering the data officially revealed by the Congressional Budget Office of the large cut that organizations like the IMF take. Anino added that resources could be sought from all those tax benefits they continue to give to billionaires such as Marcos Galperín from Mercado Libre, Paolo Rocca and Bulgheroni linked to energy and the steel industry, or to relatives of Minister Caputo if you look at the special regime of Tierra del Fuego. For the richest, the government does allocate a lot of money.
Milei’s government is committed to consolidating alliances with the dialogue blocks. The “package” of agreements is crossed by a new reduced omnibus law (with the possibility of including the labor reform that was in DNU 70 and was stopped by justice); a fiscal pact where they rediscuss the money for the provinces (which includes the debate on profits, Country tax or check tax); and the fate of DNU 70 that it is in the hands of Deputies to define if it falls after the rejection in the Senate. There are set the priorities of the blocks directly allied with Milei such as the PRO, and the dialogueists such as Pichetto and the UCR, who although they try to appear interested in the retirement agenda, it is very difficult for them to truly want to give the numbers and oppose the government at this point while they are negotiating, above all, the “fiscal package” for the provinces.
The government wants to speed up the times and tries to take the half sanction of the new omnibus law at the end of April. It is not clear that she can achieve it. Not only because of the gray areas of the negotiations, but because of the street thermometer. Social discontent is growing due to inflation, retirements, layoffs, the recession that is beginning to be felt, the dengue crisis and a government that does nothing, and with violent tariffs that are beginning to reach homes and businesses. If in the first attempt to approve the omnibus law there were already persistent mobilizations, what is coming can be expressed much more broadly with new sectors that are being attacked or feel the adjustment more strongly. The times of the pocket They play against the allies and dialogueists of the Milei government: this being the case, it will become increasingly difficult for them to stand up and defend their support or conciliatory attitude.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
