CONTINUE
The Spanish economy is going through a crisis that makes every plan presented by the Government old. Far from being an excusable mistake by La Moncloa, it is the result of a consciously slow and indolent policy, always waiting for others to do (Brussels) or take the blame (Putin, Covid-19, Filomena and even the sub-haze). Saharan). Despite the series of warnings received from others and experts, the Government judged the trump card to be a short-term inflation, but the one that is now suffering is runaway, almost 10 percent, and with signs of taking root for a long time. The levels of public debt and deficit -more contained thanks to an exorbitant tax collection- weigh like mill wheels on the neck of the State's response, which is secluded in policies that are not at all audacious to face a situation that is vaccinated against topical and typical measures of a government of the left, lavish in consolidating spending and cowardly in taking risks.
Sánchez presented to Congress a 160-page anti-crisis plan published in the BOE on the same day of his appearance. This proceeding is, from the parliamentary perspective, one more insult to the sovereignty represented by the Lower House; and from the economic point of view, a new demonstration of the lack of a project. With inflation at almost 10 percent, many of the plan's proposals have been amortized and this subtracts any credit to the government that does not even believe in its own initiative.
In times of crisis, with war drums, the solutions have to be devoid of the classic arguments about the 'social shield' or that 'no one will be left behind', because the social shield jumps when there are thousands of citizens subjected to the fear of not being able to pay for basic products because of inflation. We must change the records of economic policy. The options are known but they demand political courage and government responsibility, two things that Sánchez runs away from. Today ABC consulted a vein of experts to offer alternative solutions to inflation. The sad thing is that Sánchez does not listen to any. Many of them converge on the need for an income pact between companies and workers so that the effects of inflation are projected in a balanced way throughout the production chain by containing wages and business margins. It will serve as a means of imposing disproportionate burdens on employers if economic activity does not allow the increase of employees or the improvement of templates. In the end, return to ERTE as makeup for a fragile economy. On the other hand, the Government should courageously address the situation of pensions and assess whether it is not time to 'deindex' them to decouple them from inflation, and thus avoid a spiral of spending that ends with a cut order identical to the one that Brussels sent to Zapatero in 2010.
The policy-doping of subsidies and credits is not an alternative to a policy of selective tax cuts. The Government is treating inflation as a source of income, but this option has the limit of the spending capacity of families, which is no longer that of 2021, when the savings from the pandemic were released. There are fickle products such as electricity and fuels that must lower their taxes. Also the food. With 130 percent of debt over GDP, tax reductions must be measured with caution, but not run away from them. It is even possible to return the lower personal income tax so as not to punish consumption more. In Spain, it is evident, another government is needed.
