Arrimadas warns of the effects of raising pensions and public salaries, but the president disdains the alarm: “It is cheap merchandise”
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has boasted this Wednesday of his General Budget project (PGE), which “protects the middle and working class”, and has harshly criticized that the head of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, of “antisocial”. However, the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, has stressed that the public accounts only seek to “buy wills” and has accused him of “distracting with the rich” by talking about a tax on large fortunes while “dedicated to fleecing the workers””.
“The Socialists have never gotten Spain out of a crisis. They have gotten us into all of them and they are doing it again. Recognize it, their Budgets are pure electoral calculation,” Gamarra snapped at Sánchez in the control session of the Government of Congress, an intervention that has started saluting the “prompt recovery” of the Prime Minister after passing the Covid-19.
After assuring that the head of the Executive has “lost the sense of reality”, the leader of the PP has indicated that this is the reason why he refuses to “adjust” the personal income tax for measured and low incomes as requested by the PP since April or to lower VAT on some basic products from a shopping basket to 4% that “has risen 15%”. And all this, she has continued, despite the fact that she has “27,000 million in excess collection at the expense of the effort and sacrifice of the Spanish”.
Gamarra has blamed the government for not making sacrifices when it has the “record number” of 800 advisers, 22 ministries and has spent 158 ??million on propaganda. “His government spends like never before while the Spanish sacrifice like never before,” he stressed.
That said, and with several electoral appointments next year, he has said that Sánchez “needs the money of all Spaniards to buy wills”, but his partners are already reminding him that they are going to “make him sweat”. “Remember, they love you for his weakness,” he added.
Gamarra has assured that the Government “talks a lot about social justice and equity” but in Spain there are “more than 13 million Spaniards in a situation of poverty and social exclusion”, a figure that, as he said, had not been reached since the crisis of 2008 with the Executive of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
“You don’t have a problem with sorcerers and witches, but rather with being a bad ruler who is incapable of solving anything. Let go of incantations, propaganda and ideological prejudices because while you distract with the rich, you dedicate yourself to fleecing the workers”, he has declared, to ask Sánchez to join the “rebellion” of his ‘barons’ in a “every man for himself” and “continue copying PP proposals”.
SÁNCHEZ CENSORS THAT FEIJÓO SEES HIS “ANTISOCIAL” PGE
In his turn, Sánchez has censured in the plenary session of Congress that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has branded the Budgets as “antisocial” and has pulled data to disprove that argument, comparing them with the last ones of the Government of Mariano Rajoy of 2018 in social spending (increase of 35.4%), education (increase of 62%) or dependency (increase of 151.4%). “In four years we are going to have reversed all the cuts in the national dependency system that you perpetrated when you governed,” he emphasized.
For this reason, the President of the Government has asserted that “these are social Budgets” that “protect the middle and working class of this country” and has stressed that, while with the PP Government “inequality and poverty increased” , with theirs they will put “all the resources at the service of the social majority” and not of the “wealthy minority” as, in their opinion, the PP did when it was in Moncloa.
After criticizing the “summary of slogans” used by Gamarra, Sánchez stressed that the data confirms that “in two years they have recovered the levels of employment prior to the pandemic” while with the previous crisis it took “ten years”.
In addition, he stressed that his government has already deployed 35,000 million euros to “respond to the economic and social consequences of Putin’s war in Ukraine”, where, as he said, “they have not counted on the PP to protect the class average and working class of the country”.
The chief executive has pointed out that Alberto Núñez Feijóo shows a “lack of empathy” by saying that “it is old to talk about rich and poor in a country that has two million children in poverty.” “The old thing is to lower taxes on the rich, what they do in the United Kingdom,” he exclaimed, advising the PP to speak with his “conservative friends and colleagues.”
EQUIPMENT “FAILED”
Shortly after, Sánchez has also defended the PGE before the questions of the president of Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas, who has accused him of “mortgaging future generations” due to the revaluation of pensions provided for in public accounts.
Arrimadas, who has also affected the rise in civil servants’ salaries, has indicated that the Government “increases two gaps”: between generations and between those who work in the private and public sectors. Thus, he has urged him to link the “necessary” revaluation of pensions to the salary of young people, as is the case in other countries such as Norway.
In the same way, he has reproached the Executive for doing “nothing” to improve health, education or cut “superfluous” spending by the Public Administration, assuring that they intend to “burst” the Welfare State. “To buy votes today they sell the future of millions of Spaniards,” she added.
The president, for his part, has accused Arrimadas of “buying the argument, the damaged material and the cheap merchandise” that the public pension system is “unsustainable” and has assured that Ciudadanos “does not defend” the interests of the majority .
Along these lines, Sánchez has asked him to study the PGE “in depth” and, noting that the Government defends the “sustainability” of pensions, has clarified that the accounts “for the first time in years” contribute money to the pension piggy bank .
The president has also claimed other PGE items, such as money for education or housing, and has stressed that they are “in favor of the social majority” and “are committed to social cohesion.” “He supports these measures and abandons cheap merchandise”, he has riveted him.
