With the proposal that we must stop “outsourcing” social aid through grassroots organizations, Vice President Cristina Kirchner prepared the ground to promote the creation of a Universal Basic Salary (SBU), a bill that she presented at the May the deputy of the Front Patria Grande Itai Hagman, who is accompanied by Kirchnerism behind closed doors (eleven legislators from the Front of All signed the initiative) and outside the National Congress. A strong move ahead of next year’s presidential elections.
It was the general secretary of La Cámpora, Andrés “Cuervo” Larroque, who whitewashed the position of hard-line Kirchnerism by participating in a talk in the Buenos Aires Legislature together with the leader of the Great Fatherland Front, Juan Grabois, to present the initiative. “It is said that there is a lack of work, and it is not like that: there is plenty of work, the problem is that the market does not pay for it,” said Larroque when giving support to SBU.
If the project is approved, 7.5 million people between the ages of 18 and 64 would receive the universal salary. The proposed amount is equivalent to the Basic Food Basket of an adult ($14,401 in May) and would be collected by unemployed, informal, social monotributists, agricultural workers and private households.
“It would have a fiscal cost of 2.1% of GDP,” argued Hagman at that time. It would be a State policy without intermediaries, taking power away from the organizations that today distribute that assistance.
The governor of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, also referred to the issue, considering that the provinces and municipalities have to have “participation” in the management of social assistance. “We have to federalize social plans. That means that they are not managed from a central decision, but that each one of the governors and local governments have participation in that process, ”he said, aligned with CFK.
Once again Emilio Pérsico, leader of the Evita Movement and Albertista official in the Ministry of Social Development, picked up the glove. In addition to considering that the vice president “is wearing herself out” with the discussions that she exhibits, he reiterated that “social organizations are a guarantee of governance.” “Cristina does not understand this new capitalism (…) she believes that with her pen she will be able to tame this capitalism,” Pérsico pointed out, while advocating the construction of “another different (economic) model.”
The opposition also joined the discussion. In the same lower house, deputies from Together for Change presented bills to replace social plans with employment. Last week Emilio Monzó announced an initiative in this regard and previously a group of PRO deputies led by José Núñez from Santa Fe had done the same.
Thus, the pressure for the social plans associated with cooperatives (Promote Work) crosses all political forces because it is one of the largest expenditures in the budget (it reaches 1,200,000 people) and its administration will be essential to sustain the fiscal targets committed to with the IMF. For instance, the issue did not escape the hermetic and prolonged meeting that the vice president held last Wednesday with the economist Carlos Melconian, who attended the meeting in his role as president of the Ieral (Mediterranean Foundation), and who, among other points, suggested to the former president “stop the monetary issue, in addition to lowering spending.”
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