– In the early hours of last Thursday, the Government formally achieved what it wanted to show on the front pages of the newspapers—half-sanction of the 2026 Budget—but was left without what it needed to govern on “autopilot”: political discipline and the ability to impose its most socially sensitive agenda. The vote left it exposed: 132 affirmative votes in general, far from the muscle that the ruling party exhibited when the Bases Law was discussed (147 votes).
– The most important thing was not the number of the general vote. This is what came next: the chapter that sought to repeal the disability emergency and reinforce university financing fell, and with that the Government suffered a political defeat that ruined the story of “a new consolidated majority.” In Deputies, the ruling party lost chapter 11 and was exposed: there were allies who turned around, decisive abstentions, and a calculation that failed.
– This setback shows a reality: the Government’s intransigence led to an even harsher defeat. Not only could he not repeal through the Budget window two laws that are already in force—and that were imposed and socially defended with mobilization. The attempt to unhook the AUH and other assignments from the automatic update was also dropped, one of the structural axes of the coming adjustment.
– Here the underlying political point appears. The Government wanted to convert a “Budget law” into a law of social discipline: university, disability, allowances, cold zones, all put into the same package, all processed as a “fiscal order.” And it crashed.
– There is also a trap that affected many governments of these characteristics before (Macri, without going any further): if you take your time and look for alliances to consolidate a coalition with volume to “bank the adjustment”, that “gradualism” can be punished by “the markets” (or Milei’s employers) because it wastes time and the strength that supposedly having won the elections gave it, etc.; But if it accelerates and attempts to make all the adjustment and counter-reforms here and now, it collides with reality and the different forms of expression of a relationship of forces because sensitive areas are affected in which adjustment of this type is not supported even by the majority of Milei voters. Then he returns to “gradualism” through facts and starts again.
– I say this because we immediately heard analyzes about the Government’s “error” for wanting to preempt the repeal of these laws. And there is some truth in that, but it is an “error” inscribed on this short blanket. If I voluntarily pushed everything forward and the “market” began to distrust, in March, April or in the middle they were going to say: “The Government made a mistake because it did not do everything quickly after winning the elections.”
– That happened this week, but by imposition. The labor counter-reform that was being pushed by Patricia Bullrich (new sword of the Government in the Senate) to be discussed next week, had to be postponed until February.
– And here it is worth looking at the whole picture again: with the unprecedented support of Trump (politician and cash), the IMF and the local establishment, the Government still had to sweat to gather 132 votes. And yet, when he wanted to go for the most sensitive thing, he lost. In 2024, for the Bases Law, it had achieved 147. Today it does not arrive. And that difference matters: it is not just parliamentary arithmetic, it is an expression (deformed, distorted) of a certain limit.
– That is why the rule that should guide any serious reading of power and this project applies: this Government must also be bought for what it is worth and sold for what it says it is worth. Milei sells omnipotence. But what Deputies showed is something else: a Government that depends on fragile alliances, on governors who calculate, on blocs that ask, on concessions that are hidden. Of rented dollars. And when the adjustment becomes too explicit—college, disability, allowances—cracks appear.
– Does this mean that the adjustment has stopped? No. In fact, the overall budget is the adjustment after the adjustment. It means that the adjustment cannot be passed as if it were an administrative procedure.
– Now, at this point we should already know that this is a Government that if it retreats it is only due to the imposition of circumstances and to gain momentum. Among other things because that is what they finance it for, so that it shows concrete results in substantive counter-reforms.
– And this setback by the Government was achieved more by past struggles (such as those of University or Disability) rather than by present actions. A march like that of the CGT the other day is not enough to stop the entire counter-reformist plan.
– What the photo of these days exposed is the frailties of a Government, but you cannot “rest” in that photo. Either it is a starting point for something bigger, inversely proportional to what Milei, Caputo, Bullrich are up to, or it is nothing.
– That was raised. Basically a question of timing: either that time is used to hit the Government’s plan or it is given time for Milei to return to the attack.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
