The senator of the National Party, Sebastián Da Silva, has once again criticized the Broad Front, in relation to the next General Assembly on March 2, in which President Luis Lacalle Pou is expected to announce a reduction of IASS and personal income tax. The opposition has questioned the measure, arguing that it will not benefit many Uruguayans.
Da Silva has expressed himself in this regard through his Twitter account, writing that “the pearls of frontist despair due to the stick in the wheel” become evident when he opposes the reduction of personal income tax and defends the mandatory quarantine. Da Silva also recalled that he had already defended the project of the Executive Power in September 2022 in the discussion of Accountability in the Upper House.
President Lacalle Pou and the Minister of Economy, Azucena Arbeleche, have held a meeting in order to refine some details for the first days of March, when the right-wing president will speak in front of Parliament to present the Accountability.
The real “spoke in the wheel”
The right-wing lawmaker and wealthy rural businessman has used the “spoke in the wheel” concept to lash out at leftist opposition on more than one occasion. In September of last year, it occurred in the context of an exchange with the FA legislator, Mario Bergara.
At that time, Da Silva had said that “he has been living in a container for a long time” when denying the pandemic and the inflationary impact of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia on the world. Bergara had spoken about the presentation of the Minister of Economy and Finance, Azucena Arbeleche, who assured that there is growth in the economy, recovery of employment and compliance with fiscal goals.
On that occasion, Bergara pointed out that surveys had been made public that ensure that the majority of the population considers that the economic situation is bad or very bad. “We cannot detach the analysis of the fiscal issue and public spending from the real situation,” he stated, adding that “we disagree with the idea of celebrating an overachievement of fiscal targets, when there are 66,000 more poor people, when there are hundreds of popular pots where tens of thousands of compatriots eat. That shows that the government actually had the leeway to help more. We estimate more than 400 million dollars in all this time that the government could invest so that poverty does not increase as it did”.
“This Surrender (that of 222) is the real stick in the wheel for all those policies that the government says it wants to carry out: the educational transformation, that there is no shortage of medicines, in infrastructure, not to mention science and technology and innovation , where minimal resources are invested”, explained Bergara.
And he added: “The explanation of the fiscal improvement is explained by the reduction of wages, reduction of passive activities and the increase in taxes. We know that we pay more income tax, more IASS. There is an increase in the tax burden in the order of 100 million dollars and the reduction in this year of salaries and liabilities is around 700 million dollars.
