Argentine President Forfeits his Intended 48% Salary Increase

Javier Milei, the Argentine president, has reversed the intention to increase his salary and that of his cabinet by 48%. The measure has generated a strong controversy in the country, which is immersed in an unprecedented escalation of public spending cuts, in the context of the inflationary crisis that Argentina has been suffering for years.

The measure was announced last weekend after the Argentine opposition challenged the decision of the President, who with a decree at the end of February increased his salary by nearly 50%, as well as that of a substantial number of his ministers.

Fight with the former president Cristina Fernandez

There have been a been a few days of jokes and accusations through social networks. Last Saturday, March 9, the Argentine president announced that he was cancelling “the salary increases of the entire national cabinet”. Milei took advantage of the comment to throw a poisoned dart against former President Cristina Fernandez, who held the country’s vice presidency until a few months ago.

“Since I have seen you so worried about pensions, what do you think if I cancel the 14,000,000 that you receive as a privileged pension and assign you a minimum pension? I do not think you will complain. Greetings”, added the President in his comment to the former President.

In this sense, the current Argentine head of state referred the responsibility for this “automatic increase” in salary to a decree issued by Fernandez de Kirchner when she was president. “I have just been informed that as a result of a decree signed by former President Cristina Kirchner in 2010, which established that political positions should always be paid more than public administration employees, an automatic increase was granted to the political staff of this Government,” he wrote.

“Obviously we are going to repeal that decree and roll back any increase that the political staff has received,” he added.

Who decided on the increase?

In the midst of this controversy over the responsibility for the salary increase, opposition congresswoman Victoria Tolosa published decree 206/2024, dated February 29 of this year, signed by the current president, Javier Milei, by means of which “all the high positions of the Executive” were to receive a salary increase for several items which, in total, would reach 48%.

Congresswoman Tolosa, who accused the President of “lying”, presented a proposal in the Argentine Congress “to repeal the increase granted by the authorities of the National Congress for the national legislators”, but also asked “that the increase decreed by Milei on February 29th be repealed, which directly impacted the settlement of his own salary and that of the high positions of his government by 48%”.

“There is no money”

The slogan most repeated by President Milei, who has been in power for only three months, is “There is no money”. Under this argument, the ultra-right politician justifies his project to dismantle the State and adjust public spending to its minimum expression.

Since the first days of his mandate, fulfilling his electoral promise, Javier Milei justified the need to privatize “all Argentine public companies”, insisting that there was no alternative to his proposal, in view of the acute economic crisis the country has been suffering for years.

“Unfortunately I have to say it again: there is no money. The conclusion is that there is no alternative to adjustment and there is no alternative to shock”, stated Milei, in his inauguration as Argentine head of state.

The privatization and state dismantling proposals have run aground both in Congress, where the president does not have a sufficient majority and needs to reach pacts with other right-wing political forces, and in the judiciary.

For now, the President’s star proposal, known as the Omnibus Law, has been paralyzed in Congress awaiting political consensus beyond the governing party.