“What kind of welfare state do we want?”. The question was rhetorical and was asked several times by the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez to defend his recent tax reform in his videotaped speech to close this Saturday the IV edition of the Forum La Toja Vínculo Atlántico by continuing to test positive for covid. It was above all a plea for the defense of public and universal services for all Spaniards. With a political message in the background. According to Sánchez’s data- and example-packed presentation, the PSOE government intends to use the apparent increase in income that the state is now collecting to better and more heavily fund a “social justice” response to the crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and the price increase due to inflation. And he opposed this model, which Spain wants to be copied by the leading countries of Europe, that of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s PP, who defends that money “in every citizen’s pocket” is better and that Sánchez questions this, because he understands that what is achieved is, on the contrary, to “disarm”, “weaken” and make “fragile” the welfare state.
“There is no better tool to fight inequality and defend social justice than the welfare state. But social justice needs a starting point: tax justice. Let everyone contribute according to their ability. It is the intrinsic value of the European social model. And it’s a principle that permeates our constitutional pact,” stressed President Sánchez in his presentation from La Moncloa at the end of a forum full of politicians and big business, very nostalgic for bipartisanship and who for three days have shown great fear and concern before the immediate future.
The head of government did not hide his concerns about the consequences of the war in Ukraine caused by Vladimir Putin, although he again predicted defeat and questioned the validity of the referendums in the territories of Russia he had promoted in recent days, which later gave through attached consultations , which the Spanish president called a “pantomime”. Sánchez also took the opportunity to recall that a year ago, when he finished the third edition of this forum, he was already anticipating some actions and demands on the energy market that he would later present with his Portuguese colleague, the Socialist António, at the European Flat advanced Costa. The appointment with Costa came just a day after opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who spent the three days of the forum on the island of A Toxa (Pontevedra), exposed the Portuguese leader’s actions as his example of not following the path of tax increases have walked.
Sánchez has not avoided this controversy, quite the opposite. His government claims that if there is a good and reasonable explanation of what the taxes and increased public revenue generated by the tax reform announced this week will be used for, Spaniards will understand the clear and ideological differences between their model and Feijóo’s liberal model . And that is exactly what the President was offered this Saturday.
The PSOE general secretary first recalled how the PP executive acted to emerge from the 2008 financial crisis, with cuts in health and social services that took 10 years to recover, and decided to address this situation now to meet in a radically different way. And he used the term “social justice” as a “value that links the most advanced countries and top performers in the Human Development Index to fair taxation to deliver quality public services” and “the value that underpins the social contract.” who unites a country”.
When asked by Sánchez “What kind of welfare state do we want?”, the president himself replied: “It’s time to choose, and the options are clear: do we strengthen or weaken the welfare state? Should we strengthen public service or weaken ourselves? Are we collectively protecting ourselves from the risks of future crises, or are we disarming ourselves as we respond to those risks?
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He denies there is a spending problem
The socialist leader also denies, as the leaders of the PP and other right-wing parties have criticized, that there is now a spending problem in Spain with the PSOE executive and United We Can. And he provided his data: “Before the pandemic, Spain was the sixth country in the European Union with the lowest tax revenues and the eleventh with the lowest public expenditure. In fact, in recent years our revenue and public spending have been five points below the EU average.” The President acknowledged that there are also some European nations that are raising and spending less, but classified them as “republics that belonged to the former belonged to the Soviet bloc”.
Sánchez used it to identify countries with higher levels of human development, social cohesion and less inequality in their tax revenues. And he emphasized: “What do we want to look like in the future?”, to immediately answer: “What we cannot expect is a welfare state like the Nordic countries with tax revenues typical of less advanced countries.” And it influenced: wanting we be Europeans with a European welfare state? If we say yes to that question, then we have to be consistent: provide income for this welfare state.”
So the head of government got into the leathery debate about how this welfare state should be paid for. And there he armed himself with the Constitution and the historical experiences observed in Europe to conclude that in a western and advanced nation like the Spanish, this state must be paid for “by all citizens and in proportion” to their income, something that, despite the controversy these days, it seems obvious to Sánchez, also with the recommendations of international organizations, the OECD, the IMF and the European Central Bank: “Taxes must be progressive: those who have more must pay more into the common fund. “
Pedro Sánchez has drawn the lessons that he believes should have been learned in this regard during the recent pandemic, when the deficiencies of the toilets were confirmed due to “the public health disarmament due to cuts”, but he regrets that some political leaders having done this she forgot so quickly. “There is no greater commitment for those who care about our health, safety and services than to ensure that public services are adequately funded through fair taxation,” he insisted, enjoying several cases explaining what the costs are entail public health and for all: “Do we take it for granted that a person can end up in poverty because they cannot afford the cost of hip surgery? Are we willing to tolerate a woman having to mortgage her house to pay the cancer treatment bill? In Spain, a person gets a mortgage to buy a house or a car. Do we accept it as logical that he has to do it to send a daughter to university?
No to liberal solutions
The socialist leader denied the liberal solutions and Feijóo’s PP with the fact that money in citizens’ pockets is better and that he disqualified the “each for himself doctrine”. And he replied with examples: “Someone who has to undergo a heart transplant would pay 90,400 euros in our country, which is paid entirely by the state, compared to almost a million and a half in the United States.” Other: “The average hospital cost is more than 5,000 euros. The average cost of surgical interventions is more than 7,500 euros. The cost of hospitalization in a bed in intensive care for Covid exceeded 19,000 euros. The total cost of hospitalization in the National Health System hospital network exceeds 16,000 million euros; a number greater than the total budget of 13 autonomous communities. The state spent 6,230 euros for every child enrolled in school. And for each student child 9,589 euros.
Sánchez concluded: “We are not talking about abstract expenses. We’re talking about services that illustrate an uncomfortable truth to spokesmen of fiscal disunity: the vast majority of people receive more services than they pay in taxes.” And he asked the private businesspeople in attendance for cooperation and help.
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