Argentina’s firebrand president, Javier Milei, announced his plan to lay off 70,000 government staff to carry out austerity measures amid the worsening economic crisis.
Milei, during a speech at the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Buenos Aires on March 26, details his plan to downsize the state by suspending public works, slashing budgets for provincial governments, and taking down irrelevant social welfare programs that amounted to 200,000.
These policies were the materialization of his “chainsaw-style” approach to maintaining fiscal balance by any means necessary.
“We are convinced of carrying out a fiscal adjustment, which has a lot of chainsaw and blender,” said Milei.
“We completely eliminated public works, of which I am proud, and something that all good people should oppose. We eliminated discretionary transfers to the provinces. We fired 50,000 public employees. Contracts were canceled, and 70,000 more are going to be cut,” the libertarian added.
Despite massive cuts to social welfare programs, Milei assured his audience that social policy would not be neglected and emphasized that the government would increase its food and schooling subsidies.
Meanwhile, Casa Rosada (the Argentine government house) clarified to La Nacion that the contracts of the 70,000 government employees are currently under review. Moreover, Milei’s administration will implement the layoff in phases.
According to the president, these aggressive policies regained public trust, and optimism in the economy rose.
The Argentine president added that the central bank is on its way to achieving net neutral reserves.
Early this year, Milei attended the World Economic Forum and told fellow leaders, “[Despite its fine-sounding ideals], socialism is always and everywhere an impoverishing phenomenon that has failed in all countries where it’s been tried out.”
The libertarian also highlighted that the ideology has “murdered over 100 million human beings.”
Meanwhile, he contrasted, “Countries that have more freedom are 12 times richer than those that are repressed.”
“The lowest [income] percentile in free countries is better off than 90% of the population in repressed countries. Poverty is 25 times lower, and extreme poverty is 50 times lower.”
Additionally, the Argentine leader highlighted that the specter of “market failure,’ is just what it is, a mere specter.”
“There are no market failures.”
“Consequently, if someone considers that there is a market failure, I would suggest that they check to see if there is state intervention involved. And if they find that that’s not the case, I would suggest that they check again, because obviously there’s a mistake. Market failures do not exist.”
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” Milei quipped.
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Author: The Raging Patriot
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