Governments change but financial laws remain. They remain the same: a
mix of cuts and incentives of various kinds, mostly for production,which serve to fit within the parameters of European austerity and to
keep the political institutional structure and the economic-social
framework unchanged. Those who still think that through the budget law
we can achieve a fairer distribution of resources, should accept it,
there are other paths to follow to begin to reduce the inequality that
scandalizes everyone but only in words. ---- Thus, unfurling the usual
theater, the parliamentary majority and opposition rebuke each other
with all that prepackaged phraseology that they have been repeating for
decades, made up of small agitations and small media and parliamentary
upheavals that, however, will continue to worsen the living conditions
of millions of people and to guarantee the economic and political elites
the ability to continue their action of taking hold of society.
The pattern, now tested, is repeated mechanically. If there are
resources to be gathered, then education, healthcare and pensions are
the privileged hunting ground from which to dredge to feed the arms
industry, major works, industrialists permanently in crisis and to give
a sop from time to time to this or that sector, to this or that
category. In detail, as has been recognized by most commentators, the
financial maneuver is a photocopy of last year's, which already suffered
from the Draghian imprint. En passant one can observe how this economic
shrewdness, in the logic of cutting social spending, by the Meloni
government is much appreciated by the European and Italian
establishment. Now apart from the financing, desired with particular
ostentation by Salvini's League, of an additional 2 billion for the
project of the bridge over the Strait of Messina, there is a conspicuous
increase in military spending of 2 billion, for a total expenditure of
32 billion per year, of which 13 for new armaments. As claimed with
satisfaction by one of our esteemed long-standing politicians, the
Honorable Gasparri, who declared that if we want full granaries, we need
to fill the arsenals. Showing a certain attention to the good things of
the past, granaries! Health, education and pensions are suffering more
or less disguised cuts and in any case have absolutely insufficient
resources to adequately face the duties. On pensions, however, the
government can boast of having increased the minimum ones, never mind if
it is just three euros per month! But the solution is ready: push, as
everyone has been doing for years, towards supplementary pensions. In
fact, a Northern League amendment establishes that one can retire at 64
if one is in the contributory system and if by cumulating compulsory and
supplementary pension provision one reaches a pension three times higher
than the minimum, around 1700 euros: insurance companies and pension
funds are grateful. After all, banks and insurance companies must be
treated with consideration, woe betide anyone who talks about taxation,
they are kindly asked. An article in Il Sole 24 Ore on December 23 thus
announces the measures, which have been discussed for months, against
them: "The voluntary contribution to the public coffers by banks and
insurance companies and provided for by the maneuver has risen over the
last few months and is equal to 6.5 billion. The prospect of advancing
liquidity to the State has been accepted by the sector in light of the
fact that it is possible to recover the funds in subsequent years. In
essence, it is an interest-free loan". The fact that our tax system, in
defiance of the usual Constitution, is shamelessly regressive does not
seem to scandalize anyone anymore. From this year, the mechanism of only
three rates has been stabilized: 23% for incomes up to 28 thousand
euros, 35% up to 50 thousand, 43% from 50 thousand and above. It would
be interesting to take a look at the historical series of rates from
1974 to today to understand how direct taxation has become increasingly
favorable to the rich classes and penalizing the poorest classes. In
fact, if in the second half of the 70s there was a high and diversified
number of brackets and the highest incomes were taxed up to 72%, to then
drop in the 80s to around 65%, in the years that followed until today
the rates have decreased, compacting the taxation downwards to the
current 43% for incomes, as we have seen, over 50 thousand euros. A real
robbery to the detriment of the middle and lower classes.
In the face of the pointless brawl over the budget law, the social and
economic picture is more dramatic than ever: a dizzying increase in
inequality (see the data collected annually by Oxfam); an exponential
increase in poverty (almost six million people in absolute poverty, 10%
of the population); increasingly precarious and poorly paid jobs (which
the statistics disguise as an increase in employment, making government
officials happy); modest or almost imperceptible growth in GDP (despite
the devastation and disparities that "the religion of growth" produces).
As every year, for a long time, the Sbilanciamoci! campaign has drawn up
a counter-budget diametrically opposed to that of the various
governments in office. This year's is, as summarized on their website:
"an economic-financial counter-maneuver with zero balance, with 102
proposals for over 54 billion euros to ensure justice, well-being and
sustainability for the country". Proposals of absolute common sense that
take resources away from what is harmful - wars, weapons, major works,
polluting industries - and divert them towards services - school,
health, pensions -, introducing a modest progressivity of taxes. And yet
no government, right or center-left, has ever taken this into account.
Is there an answer to such deafness? It would be rather obvious to say
that the reason is simple: there is no real and determined social
mobilization that can force governments to change their political
direction. But in times of calm and social resignation everything seems
beyond our strength and it is not enough, as some have done, to wave the
empty spectre of revolt, emulating the wordy propaganda of maximalists
of another era. If, then, we have reached this point, perhaps it could
be more useful to reconnect the threads of a discourse from below that
holds firm some principles: direct action of the subaltern classes,
coherence means-ends, autonomy of struggles: no compromise, no
accommodation.
Angelo Barberi
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/2025/01/09/una-finanziaria-targata-draghi/
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