Sheinbaum begins Presidency with urgent challenges: security, health and finances

A government with complicated finances

Claudia Sheinbaum will have a great obstacle for her government: finances, after the high public spending incurred by the government of President Andrés Manue López Obrador.

“We all know that there is a problem in public finances, especially after this last year of the outgoing administration, where a deficit was approved that had not been seen since 2008 or more years ago,” says Alejandra Macías, Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research (CIEP).

And the president-elect herself knows it. Several of the commitments he made during the campaign will have to be implemented gradually because he does not have sufficient public resources. For this reason, it announced that its universal scholarship will begin in 2025 with high school students, and by 2026 it will be for all basic education. Support for women from 60 to 64 will start next year with Mexican women who are between 63 and 64 years old, and later those of other ages will be incorporated.

The analysis “Mexico Horizon 2024-2030, between challenges and opportunities”, by Franklin Templeton, explains that the Sheinbaum administration will have complicated legacies, including tight public finances and spending pressures.

In addition to the expenses already budgeted to maintain social policy, and current spending, the Sheinbaum administration will face challenges derived from reforms such as the judicial reform, through which judges, magistrates and ministers will be elected by citizen vote.

Alejandra Macías maintains that a tax reform is necessary, since “austerity” is not enough to achieve greater income, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said when “suggesting” governments not to opt for a tax reform. If you do not do so, consider that certain items may be affected.

“If it is not enough, first you go into debt, but you go into debt to pay for social programs and you stop investing in infrastructure, that hurts growth and the most likely thing is that there will be cuts in health, which is serious because it is a debt that remains outstanding. of this administration, as well as other areas, such as educational infrastructure, for example,” he adds.