Rivera censures the budget agreement between the Government and Podemos - The Province
The president of Ciudadanos,Albert Rivera, has censored the draft of theState's general budgets(PGE) for 2019 agreed on Thursday by the Government and United We Can because, as indicated, involves increasing the tax burden on the working middle class and "shoot" spending.
"Sánchez-Iglesias agree to raise taxes to the working middle class and shoot the expense again.It is a mistake to empower the economy, the Spaniards deserve to decide as soon as possible their Government and their policies in the ballot boxes ", Rivera has written in his Twitter account, to later claim, once again, that general elections be called" already ".
Secretary of Programs and Sectoral Areas of the orange formation and economic spokesman in the Congress, Toni Roldán, affirmed in a press conference that the agreement announced this Thursday is in fact"wet paper",because the seats of the PSOE and Unidos Podemos are not enough to be able to approve the PGE and they would need the support of other parties. That is why he declined to comment on concrete measures in the document.
The head of Fiscal Policy in the Executive of Cs, Francisco de la Torre, has criticized on Twitter a specific question, that the Minister of Finance,María Jesús Montero, have not clarified this Friday what is the deficit with which they have prepared the budget plan.
Montero has indicated that next Monday an extraordinary Council of Ministers will be held to approve the base budget that the Government will send to the European Commission that same day withthe general lines of public accountsnext year, and that will be then when the macroeconomic figures will be detailed, including those of deficit, and estimates of total income and expenditure.
Know if the measures of the agreement can be paid
According to De la Torre, who chairs the Committee on Budgets of the Congress, the Executive ofPedro SánchezYWe canshould clarify now"elementary doubts" about whether your agreement "can be paid", if it will generate a deficit and if it is compatible with the current deficit path that the PP government agreed with Brussels or "with which the (current) Government would want but rejected the Congress".
The level of fudge is hard to beat ... They have not yet begun to make the DBP they have to send on Monday, because the first step is to know how much deficit you are going to have. Flipante https://t.co/oG1MTcRNM1
"Francisco d la Torre (@frdelatorre)October 11, 2018
"The level of fudge is hard to beat", the Deputy of Citizens has concluded. The Minister of Finance has assured that the agreement with Podemos does not entail a substantial modification of the already approved spending ceiling, since the deficit path proposed by the Government entails a relaxation of some 1,500 million for the State, compared to the remaining 5,000 million for autonomous communities and Social Security.
In any case, De la Torre has rejected the Government's forecast that it will raise 5,678 million euros through fiscal reform and anti-fraud measures, not including contribution revenues. "Those numbers do not come out as a joke with the tax increases of the document Podemos-Gobierno," he said.
Specifically, he said that the revenue from tax increases of the document "do not give 5,000 or 7,000 million" and thatdoubt even that they reach the 2,000 million. Although the Minister of Finance has estimated in 5,678 million euros tax revenue - and in 2,082 million expenses associated only with the General State Administration -, the general secretary of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, has spoken about 7,000 million.
Increase in the minimum wage
On the other hand, De la Torre has echoed the criticism of other users on Twitter regarding the rise in the minimum inter-professional salary (SMI), whichwould increase in 2019 to 900 euros per month. According to the economist José Carlos Díez, making an "intense" rise while the price of oil increases and international trade remains almost stagnant "will have negative effects on job creation."
In addition, the head of Fiscal Policy of Cs has released a comment by the president of the National Federation of Associations of Self-Employed Workers (ATA), Lorenzo Amor, in which he warns that theincrease of the minimum wage will bring the rise of 12.5%of the minimum base of the Special Autonomous Regime, for which more than 1,700,000 workers are quoted.
That"It will mean raising the price by 420 euros a year", so "or it is limited that the self-employed who do not reach the SMI have a reduced quota or many will go into a submerged economy," he said.
