In a new counterpoint with Javier Milei, the national deputy Miguel Ángel Pichetto He once again questioned the President’s decision to renounce the presidential pension and defended that income as a way of respecting the institutional investiture.
“In the most important countries, allowances are given to former presidents“, insisted the Peronist leader who, although he highlighted that the president’s decision was “praiseworthy”, questioned the “political hypocrisy.”
In an opinion column, the head of the We Make Federal Coalition bloc defended the special assignment to leaders who finish their term, emphasizing that it is a practice based on “the institutional quality and in the respect for their investitures”.
“Argentina It is not a third world country that ignores its former presidents, nor forces them to distract themselves from the exercise of their functions to plan their future, by leaving the most honorable position in the nation. Former presidents should be consultation peoplesince they governed the country and continue to represent us in the world,” he said.
For Pichetto, “the case of USA is the most paradigmatic” of how the issue was resolved. He recalled that in that country it is being discussed whether the protection of the secret service or the assignment of support personnel to convicted former presidents should be withdrawn, but he clarified that “the lifetime assignments assigned by law to all former presidents and their widows” are not being questioned. .
“The issue was discussed in the North American Congress for the first time in 1912, and returned to public debate in 1955, due to Harry Truman’s financial limitations when he left office. The legislation sought to “maintain the dignity of the Great Office” and prevent a former president from engaging in “business or an occupation that denigrated the Office that he had sustained or in any way that could be considered improper,” the legislator notes. And he continued: ‘The law’would avoid the possibility of indignities and the deterioration of the view of the people and the world regarding the office of the president of the United States.’. Different amendments were made, which included additional benefits to the pension, and it was finally approved in 1958.
“This system also works in Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain and Brazil, among other countries,” Pichetto concluded in the article.
The comment is a new episode of political discussion on the retirements and salaries of presidents. Shortly after Milei’s position of promoting the resignation of his special assignment as president became known, Pichetto initially defended that benefit. “A stupid head thinks that“said the legislator. “They ran out, let them starve”the President bellowed.
The tone of the debate then was heated. Milei maintained that eliminating “privilege retirements” was a “very important incentive to do things well.” “Those from the caste believe they can do things wrong, they have insurance. That’s over for them. “Let them starve themselves for being shit,” the libertarian lashed out.
In a speech in the Chamber of Deputies, when a retirement update project was being debated, Pichetto had stated that eliminating the benefit for former presidents corresponded to ““a very perverse vision of anti-politics”. “Fundamentally he believes that Politics is for drug traffickers, marginalized people, criminals, people who have no interest in defending Argentina, and think that the President, when his term ends, has to go ask for work in a factory. That’s what he thinks in his stupid head,” he repudiated.
In his opinion column, published in the newspaper Clarionthe national deputy asked to propose a more “rational” tone to the debate and pointed out that his position is “institutional”which has no “corporate or class” components, and which does not seek personal benefits “since there are no special lifetime assignments for legislators”.
However, in a clear criticism of the presidential decision, he fired: “It bothers me that they underestimate me and I don’t believe political hypocrisy. I vindicate institutions beyond people. It is laudable that the president wants to give up this benefit“But what we are talking about is protecting the presidential institution from corporate positions and incentives of dubious origin.”
Pichetto also considered that it was “a mistake to introduce this issue in the treatment of the reparation of retirement assets,” after it was incorporated by another of the opposition blocs.. ““This issue only served to distract from the center of the central debate: the situation of retirees,” he added.
However, he insisted on his rejection of the approach that was made to the issue and pointed out that “in the Argentine political debate there is a guilty feeling that destroys us as a Nation, in which apparently noble causes are embraced and serious discussions are omitted.” “I understand the symbolic weight of the issue, but As politicians we should not encourage demagogy to analyze these types of issues: there are other appropriate mechanisms to punish those who have not fulfilled their duties in public office,” he stressed.
From this position, and in a passage in which he tangentially referred to irregularities in the Ministry of Human Capital, Pichetto also defended the public administration salaries, that “they should be reasonable to vindicate the function” of the State.
“The low salary recognition prevents the best technical staff from approaching the State, degrading the functioning of the administration. This has very harmful consequences for the country, because This is what paves the way for sinister characters and opens institutional politics for adventurers and drug traffickers. What is unacceptable is resorting to fraudulent hiring or other dark, and even spurious, mechanisms in order to increase income,” he lashed out.
“Let’s not harm the institutions, let’s be inspired by the functioning of the countries that promoted capitalism as the undisputed system for economic and social development,” said Pichetto, and concluded: “Let’s build a efficient state, intelligentthat lives up to the important nation that we are, and on which we can rely to definitively progress.”
