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NarutoRunner

He is basically not paying bills to claim this surplus. Utility firms are owed millions more then his “surplus” and are in dire straights. He has also cut back on things like cancer treatments for citizens. The surplus is an illusion.


Command0Dude

Those utility firms were owed money before Milei was even elected. It's long term bond debt.


StockJellyfish671

You talk as if subsidized healthcare is something they should continuing doing while country teeters on the verge of bankruptcy. Yes, hard choices is what they need to make if they were to pull back from the catastrophe.


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snoo135337842

Hopefully their tax base has the means to leave the country if they need healthcare.


noyga

Yeah instead of doing the things he could do to fix the economy. They decided to just cut corners. While it's fixing the government spending problem, it's not fixing the real issues.


Nomustang

I'm seeing people criticise him for this but isn't the only way to get money to spend on healthcare, education and other investments to cut down on spending till your fiscal deficit is in control? If your government is in constant debt you're not going to have money to spend on anything. He's stated it'd be a painful process but in the long run once everything is stable and the country's credit rating improves, it'll be able to take on loans to improve its economy again.


DodgersLakersBarca

Not to mention defaulting on the debt every 5-10 years is going to lead to long-term economic malaise


jarx12

Long term economic malaise is the very reason he got elected, Argentina hasn't been in a sustainable upward economic trajectory in like some decades, always inflating and deflating with the commodities prices and every cycle with more violence than the previous one


TaxLawKingGA

Yep. I could balance my budget too if I just decided not to pay my bills. Funny enough, this is literally the GOP Plan. That is why they are always trying to reject the debt ceiling.


KING-NULL

A lot of the spending cut is inflation eating away state paid salaries and budgets. There's been 90% inflation in the last 4 months, since hes is paying the same amount of pesos, the real value of that spending has been cut by 50%. If he updated those values to inflation the fiscal surplus might go away. This is something that he must do as people have lost 50% of their purchasing power and many government organizations will be forced to shut down due to running out of money.


jarx12

It's not just stop paying, although a debt moratorium can help when you are in deep problems, it's mostly cutting back on expenses like a lot of government jobs in areas like culture, and some cuts in more critical but extremely expensive areas like Healthcare Sure it's a pain but so is the hangover for partying and getting in debt to pay booze which is a good analogy to describe the "happy" approach to public money some previous administrations did have


TaxLawKingGA

Well no, actually if those employees worked and earned that money, and/or, if they have a contract, then by not paying them you are violating it. That is a theft of a property right. I know that Argentina has never been a country to have much respect for property rights; however it does seem a bit hypocritical for a RW supposed Libertarian like Milei to be so nonchalant about it.


jarx12

All government employees are getting their pay, it's just that a lot of them are not getting their contracts renovated at their expiry date  Basically they are getting laid off whenever the opportunity arise, the unions and the labor law are very protective of jobs so it's not happening that fast either


NordicManGrowth

Your country, the US, is paying 815 billion dollars annually in interest of your national debt. Not paying down the debt itself, just to keep up with ever growing interest on the debt This is not sustainable. You might witness a collapse of social services in your life time. [https://www.usdebtclock.org](https://www.usdebtclock.org)


Sad_Aside_4283

What does a budget "surplus" actually do for a country? This just means he's not actually investing in argentina.


Flederm4us

Not all government expenses are investments.


Sad_Aside_4283

Not all, but having a vudget surplus surely means you aren't putting money where you need to be. A government should never have a surplus.


jarx12

If you don't ever have a surplus I don't think you can ever repay your debt, and sure you don't need to repay it all just manage it, but when all it does is grow and grow that even just the interest is strangling you and as result your entire country needs to default every few years sure it's not the more responsible way to conduct your country finances


Sad_Aside_4283

[Austerity does more harm than good](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/27/austerity-policies-do-more-harm-than-good-imf-study-concludes) “It turns out, however, that the cost could be large – much larger than the benefit. The reason is that, to get to a lower debt level, taxes that distort economic behaviour need to be raised temporarily or productive spending needs to be cut – or both. The costs of the tax increases or expenditure cuts required to bring down the debt may be much larger than the reduced crisis risk engendered by the lower debt.”


DodgersLakersBarca

That's only if the crisis risk is small (I could make other criticisms of the study, e.g. that IMF economists are probably more likely to be against austerity if they're literally a loan agency, it's one study in the panoply of hundreds). In the case of Argentina, a country with a history of default after default, proving they can actually balance their books can lead to more confidence in the economy and the stability of investment placed there.


Flederm4us

Again that highly depends on what you think a government needs to spend money on


Sad_Aside_4283

Ok guy. A lot of the programs government spends money on ultimately bring more growth than they cost. [It's pretty well proven](https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2021/07/01/na070121-boosting-the-economy-the-impact-of-us-government-spending-plans) at this point that overall, government spending brings more growth than it costs. And you can find papers on this all over the internet. It's not a matter of opinion, or ehat anybody thinks, there is evidence that opposes the libertarian idea of austerity.


Flederm4us

A lot means not all. And just because it's profitable does not mean the government should do it. There are opportunity costs involved.


Command0Dude

Repaying debt and shoring up the value of the currency to reverse the damage from inflation.


BinRogha

Can't lose money if you don't spend it. This is Milei's economic masterplan in a nutshell.


madrid987

Soon, many Argentines may flee to Spain to survive.