The project of Budget 2023 will begin its path in the Senate next Wednesdaywhen it will be put up for discussion among the members of the Budget and Treasury Commission, after it was approved in the Deputies at dawn on Wednesday with the votes of the ruling party and the opposition.
The intention of the ruling party in the Upper House is to discuss the issue for two days, on Wednesday and Thursday, and then prepare to issue an opinion.
Although the meeting was not officially announced, the authorities of the Commission headed by Ricardo Guerra from La Rioja have already summoned its members to a meeting for 10 o’clock this Wednesday, sources close to the senator from the Frente de Todos (FdT) informed Télam.
The intention of the ruling party in the Upper House is to discuss the issue for two days, on Wednesday and Thursday, and then prepare to issue an opinion.
That day, in addition, there will be a joint meeting with the Transportation Commission to discuss, first of all, several bills presented by senators from the ruling party and the opposition on the creation of a federal system of fare compensation for public passenger transport.
Official sources also anticipated that an invitation will be extended to the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, to attend the meeting of the Commission with the aim of defending the project approved by the Chamber of Deputies.
The 2023 Budget project has as its central points the forecast of a global expenditure of almost $29 billion, a fiscal deficit of 1.9%, an inflationary guideline of 60% and allocates 70% of the resources to social items.
The path in Deputies and Senate numbers
The norm, modified in its committee discussion and then in the enclosurewhen the opposition managed to block articles that encouraged judges and judicial employees to pay income tax and the article that allowed the Government to manage the aliquots of the retentions to the fieldobtained in Deputies 180 positive votes, 22 negative and 49 abstentions.
In addition to the FdT legislators and their allies, the project was also supported by dissident Peronism and radicalism; while the left, the Civic Coalition and the right-wing blocs opposed it and the PRO abstained.
In the upper house, the ruling party needs all its senators to be seated on the benches, in addition to the representatives of Together We Are Río Negro, the Concord Renewal Front and Hay Futuro Argentina.
The interbloc of the FdT has 35 senators of its own, to which are added those three legislators who are its allies.
The illness of the head of the official caucus, José Mayans, who remains hospitalized in the Italian Hospital of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, leaves the main bloc in the Senate with just enough numbers to enable debate.
However, it is expected that the representative of Córdoba Federal, Alejandra María Vigo, will join to complete the number necessary for the quorum.
On the opposition side, the Together for Change (JxC) bloc, made up of 33 members, will resolve during the week how it will stand before the session and, later, the position it will adopt when voting on the law.
The intention of the FdT is that the project be approved as it came from Deputies, so that it becomes law and that it should not return to the lower house for a second review.
If the main opposition bench repeats the position of its peers in Deputies, the ruling party will have the law assured when it arrives at the venue.
However, some representatives of radicalism have already let it be known that they do not want to give their approval to the Budget, so the ruling party must make sure, yes or yes, to align all its members and their allies.
The intention of the FdT is that the project be approved as it came from Deputies, so that it becomes law and that it should not return to the lower house for a second review.
On the other hand, the ruling party also allowed to transcend the idea that, in addition to the Budget bill, the bill that extends for five years the validity of the taxes on Profits, to the Bank Debits and Credits, known as the Check Law, and the Monotax, Capital of the Cooperative and additional Cigarette that expire at the end of 2022 and represent 32% of tax collection.
This initiative, which has already been approved in Deputies, obtained an opinion in the Budget and Treasury Committee of the Senate on September 21 last.
