After the resignation of the Minister of Social Development, Giorgio Jackson, eyes are on the opposition and on its willingness to move forward with two important issues led by the Executive: the pension reform and the new fiscal pact.
Moreover, today the ministers Jeannette Jara (Labor) and Mario Marcel (Treasury) arrive in Chillán to participate in a citizen meeting at the U. del Bío-Bío, as part of a tour to the south of the country, to socialize both reforms .
Regarding the expectations regarding the behavior of the right, the president of the Senate Labor Committee, Loreto Carvajal, stated that “for weeks the right demanded the departure of minister Jackson to sit down to agree on a pension reform, but now we see that new demands appear, and the pledged word is not fulfilled. Thus, politics is not given prestige, and it only harms thousands of women who hope to see their pensions increased. 50% of the women receive AFP pensions -supplemented by the PGU- that reach an amount of $232,000 per month or less as a pension; they cannot continue to be postponed by this attitude of the right”.
According to Carvajal, “the country needs to combine solidarity with individual savings and PGU; For this reason, the government’s new position of allocating 4% of the new contribution to solidarity insurance and 2% to individual savings is sensible, and I hope that we will move forward with that formula, and not continue postponing the urgency of this solidarity reform”.
In economic matters, he said, “it is key to develop initiatives that reactivate the economy and allow us to grow in 2024; because only with economic growth can we have more social equity, and that was raised by the Minister of Finance in the Fiscal Pact for Development as a new axis to develop, that has my most enthusiastic support, and I do not understand the blockade that the right and the business community to this proposal by Mario Marcel”.
From the UDI, Senator Gustavo Sanhueza stated that “the government insists on erroneous formulas, which the vast majority of Chileans reject. To associate the tax and pension reform with the departure of Jackson is to understand nothing. The big problem is that the government launches its proposals, and then says ‘let’s talk’, but when they are ready. Consequently, from the UDI a proposal was delivered to raise pensions with a financed proposal and that proposes that the additional 6% of contributions go to individual accounts and that they be inherited. The government must put ideology aside to move faster.”
“Reality Bath”
Among the deputies, the ind.-DC, Felipe Camaño, stated that “the right wing put Minister Jackson’s resignation as a condition to resume the dialogue tables, both in the pension reform and in the fiscal pact. Now that the minister has resigned, one would expect the tables to be reactivated, but in recent days we have seen through the media how the right wing has been disregarding this commitment and that is serious, because the future of people who have less it cannot be in the hands of personal tastes”.
According to Camaño, “we all agree that we need better pensions and for that we need to increase contributions. And if we remember, the proposal of 3% individual capitalization and 3% solidarity is even from President Piñera, so one would assume that the right should be in favor of this point. But it is not like that, even some right-wing parties are promoting that the full 6% of additional contributions go to personal accounts, that there is no solidarity, and that we do not help at all to improve the pensions of those who have less and that is not good. I think that the logic of “save yourself” is not the best option within a society, and today that even the minister has already stepped aside, the call to all sectors is to sit down at the table and not Let’s think about winning the political rooster to the other, but let’s think about all those older people who are retiring with misery pensions ”.
According to the head of the RN bench, Frank Sauerbaum, his party “has never conditioned the dialogue, in fact, we have delivered proposals, the problem is that we have been little listened to. I believe that the only possibility that the Government has to advance in a fiscal pact, for example, is by emphasizing what the country really needs today, which is sustained and projected long-term economic growth. Today Chile is the only country in Latin America that is not going to grow, and therefore, this prevents employment from being created, people getting out of poverty and improving the economic cycle and the quality of life of Chileans.” .
He added that in social security matters, “we have presented proposals, we have sat down with the government, but the government does not want to renounce the refoundation of the social security system, which is absolutely unnecessary. He does not want to listen to Chileans who say they want their resources in the individual account and do not want to establish a distribution system. They want freedom of choice to be able to choose between private and public entities, so it is very difficult to have a dialogue with a government that does not take office and that does not have a citizen or parliamentary majority today to make reforms that the vast majority of Chileans do not share”.
Sauerbaum affirmed that the government “lacks a reality check to realize that today we are not in a position to approve bad reforms for the country, and furthermore, in a very rarefied climate where the President of the Republic himself is in charge of kicking him out.” to lose it even more. A few days ago he offended Sergio Onofre Jarpa, leader of RN; days ago he offended RN by calling him out for the defense of Dr. Cordero, and so on, a long etcetera. And he is permanently raising the issue of 50 years to divide Chileans. I believe that if the government wants agreements, it will have to find a way to function not only technically, but also politically.”
