The Government is thinking about where to get more money to support social plans

The latest contribution to circus of maintenance It came from the mouth of the Minister of Agriculture: “I talked to the President and they didn’t touch,” Julián Domínguez said. Last Thursday, after the morning the presidential spokesperson, Gabriela Cerruti, said almost the opposite on the same subject: “This is one of the possibilities we should consider.”

The question in the box, in the midst of endless confusion, is: what is left of us, Will withholdings increase or not? The predictable response is a non-response accompanied by a certain questionable silence.

Other questions, also open: “Does the Government believe that the tax increase on exports can really curb the impact of rising international prices on local food prices? Or are you looking, in depth, boost tax revenues and plug the holes that are being pressed? Or are you aiming at both targets at once? OR… What is at hand now, through the 2021 Emergency Law, is the possibility of raising export duties on wheat and corn from 12 to 15%which will yield him no more than moderate $ 291 million, according to specialist studies. The route of increasing the soybeans tax to 33%, which also comes out of the law, has already been used and recorded.

It was sung after that the government needs more money and that, for this reason, he asks the opposition to review its position against a new increase in withholdings “and sit down to discuss the issue.” One way to pass the ball.

The official argument is not, naturally, on the type of tax but one associated with the so -called inflationary spiral “separate” domestic prices from international. And the idea, behind the decoration, is not to just bear the political costs of the move, including tractor hits.

Always present in Kirchnerist discourse, the show is inspired by the shots agricultural income, fueled at this time by unprecedented international prices, or on unexpected income, which angered Minister Martín Guzman with some support from the Monetary Fund. Not a word, of course, about own income.

So, from bump to bump, a point is reached that explains a large part of the operation and the haste that drives it. He warned that almost four months after the start of the current financial year, the funds allocated to social plans as numerous as people are sensitive seem to have been seriously erased. Arguably, it’s dangerous to rot for what it is.

According to data from the National Congressional Budget Office, among the mismatched items, the for Progresar scholarship, of which 84.3% of the annual quota was used. Nasa Strengthen Work the account provides 50.9% and 49.9%, respectively, to the cost of financing family allowances such as those enforced for children and for pregnancy.

We’re talking about a package of costs that by the end of April had reached at least $ 429,000 million, as much as $ 420,000 that banked subsidies for gas and electricity consumption and more, even that is, than the $ 374,000 million that went to the national state. wages.

A linear calculation, made based on what already exists, says that To cover the hole will require approximately 858,000 million pesos by the end of the year. But it is too short or too short, as the bonds have proved that these days need to be removed to cover the massive impact of uncontrolled inflation and, at the same time, expect disarmament of possible social shocks and contain of mobilizations of commonly active organizations. picketers.

Another measure of the problem appears in 3 million people that, every floor, revolves around those plans and many others that receive the benefits of several programs that, starting with over twenty national, resemble an unspecified entanglement. To the extreme, some specialists report an army of 20 million “planes” that are less than crystallized or if you prefer, structural.

If the issue is, as it is clear, hard money, it also speeds up the end of the soybean season, that is, oilseed this year will contribute approximately 90% to the entire withholding box. Quietly said, it mandates the need for increasing the tax burden, whichever is possible, to be applied to exports fixed at current prices. After June, the opportunity begins to fade.

And what do we mean when we say international prices?

Data from the FAO, the United Nations organization that deals with food and agriculture, speaks of a strong, historic, increase in food prices: 29.8% average in dollars, between April 2021 and April 2022. That is, noticeably 20 percentage points above the 8% annual inflation painted today in the United States and the 7.5% it provides in Europe.

Break down by products, FAO statistics count: 46% in oils (among them, soybeans and sunflowers); 34.3% for cereals, such as wheat and corn; 23.5% in dairy products and 16.9% in beef, pork and poultry.

Given this table, it seems interesting at least to compare such prices with the income received by producers, from which country they come, and with the export duties received by the national State. Necessarily, it will be a complex exercise full of disagreeable interpretations.

So far, foreign sales paid for by the oilseed-cereal sector have reached US $ 11,098 million between January and April, i.e., more US $ 1,300 million than the same period last year. Clearly the withholdings are applied to that amount, which will eventually go to the National State treasury.

At the point, follows an estimate on How much will be left over from withholdings? to the Treasury in 2022: according to the Rosario Cereal Exchange, approximately US $ 11,000 million, of which 9,700 million will come from super soybeans and 1,100 million from corn and wheat. Clearly impact on the price, the collection will exceed almost US $ 2,000 million than last year.

Here is a clarification related to the operation of the central government: export rights are not shared among the provinces; they remain, clean, in the National Treasury box.

The exercise of comparing how much food goes up in FAO statistics and how much here, in INDEC, adds new numbers to a salad full of numbers, but it’s still a measure of our cost of living. .

Three examples for the price of one. Where the FAO says 23.5% is dairy, INDEC says 67.7%; in meat, the gap indicates 16.9 versus 63.8% and in cereals, 34.3 versus 57.4%.

No one can seriously claim that the magnitudes are the same or equivalent, but that they are very different, 23, 44 and even 47 percentage points, is a massive match, among other things, with an economy without direction, dislocated and beyond. with the government going to hell. And our inflation daily, monthly and yearly is the sound sample of the phenomenon.

It is difficult if not impossible to imagine what it would look like to separate domestic prices from international ones. yes, as you can see, they are decoupled and decoupled in the worst way.

It remains, therefore, to say only the tax on withholdings and to think, with the urgency of the case, on a formula in which each honestly contributes according to their probabilities that will at least slow down the locomotive of poverty.