Madrid, (EFE).- The PSOE and Sumar agree that families must continue to be helped in the face of the rising cost of living and both formations advocate helping the mortgaged, while the PP and VOX are committed to lowering taxes to mitigate the impact of inflation and recover purchasing power.
During the third of the four sectoral debates organized by the EFE Agency before the next general elections on July 23 (July 23), the spokespersons of the four political formations have presented their recipes to face the rise in prices, one of the four blocks in which the economic debate is articulated, which took place this Thursday at the Ortega-Marañón Foundation.
Extend the term of the mortgages up to 7 years
Patricia Blanquer, member of the Permanent Deputation of the Congress of Deputies, Secretary of Industry, Commerce and Tourism of the Federal Executive of the PSOE, and candidate for Congress for Alicante, has insisted that if they govern again they will approve that certain vulnerable families can extend the term of their mortgages up to 7 years to save an average of 300 euros.
During his speech, he also assured that Spain is one of the OECD countries that has lost the least purchasing power, a statement that clashes with that of the Secretary of Economy in the PP Executive, Luis Alberto Marín, who has insisted that Spain It is “the large economy with the greatest loss of purchasing power since the start of the pandemic.”
The Secretary of State for Social Rights and economic spokesperson for Sumar, Nacho Álvarez, has also focused on those with mortgages and the commitment of his formation to approve a check or bonus of 1,000 euros to stop the increase in mortgage prices due to the rise in the euríbor. Although, he has gone further and has stressed the intention of regulating a basic food basket or starting to raise wages “once inflation is controlled.”
Tax reductions for income below 40,000 euros
Faced with these proposals, the Secretary of Economy in the Executive of the PP, Luis Alberto Marín, has promised that a popular government will bring tax cuts, starting by deflating the personal income tax for income below 40,000 euros, but also in the VAT of products such as meat or preserves.
Along the same lines, the deputy mayor of Toledo and who has served as Vox’s economic spokesperson in Congress, Inés Cañizares, has advocated deflating personal income tax and reducing “unnecessary” public spending, clarifying that this is not referring to education or healing. It is a question, she has emphasized, of reducing the “super structure” of the State, the superfluous spending that does not revert to better services.
The first block of the economic debate has also served for the PSOE and Sumar to remember the measures taken over these years to deal with inflation, while the PP and VOX insisted that the question that must be asked is whether we are better or worse than when Pedro Sánchez came to the Government.
The PSOE ensures that the “homework is done” to comply with the new tax rules
On the other hand, the PSOE has defended this Thursday that Spain will face the new fiscal rules with “homework done” in the face of criticism from the PP for having triggered public debt, which will force it to make “commendable efforts” when the European Commission establishes the new goals.
The Secretary for Industry, Commerce and Tourism of the PSOE Federal Executive, Patricia Blanquer, has stressed that the Government’s fiscal policy has been conditioned by the context of these years, marked by a pandemic and an inflationary crisis.
“We must reconcile the sustainability of the debt with having room for policies that help social cohesion and investments”, stressed Blanquer, who has assured that Spain has “done its homework” to make growth compatible with the path of fiscal consolidation to be fixed by reducing deficit and debt.
Faced with this, the Secretary of Economy in the Executive of the PP and head of the list for Murcia, Luis Alberto Marín, has assured that Spain is going “to have to make commendable efforts” to meet the debt and deficit targets when the tax rules.
The PP spokesman has advocated lowering taxes to “broaden the bases” and be able to collect more, and has rejected that tax cuts are not compatible with maintaining the welfare state.
“What you have to do is spend better,” stressed Marín, who recalled the PP’s commitment to carry out an “audit of all public spending to eliminate unnecessary spending.”
Sumar defends the universal inheritance and Vox criticizes the “fiscal hell”
The Secretary of State for Social Rights and economic spokesman for Sumar, Nacho Álvarez, has told Marín that “these efforts” will mean a “return to austerity and cuts”, and has defended a tax reform “that guarantees that whoever has the most contribute more” and thus have more resources to ensure the Welfare State.
Álvarez has once again highlighted Sumar’s proposal for a universal inheritance of 20,000 euros and that it will mean “putting a springboard of freedom in the hands of young people”, and has stressed the need to launch a 200-euro parenting benefit for fight child poverty.
The deputy mayor of Toledo and who has served as economic spokesperson for Vox in Congress, Inés Cañizares, has accused the Government of having made all the spending associated with the pandemic measures “structural” and has indicated that AIReF has been in business for four years demanding a fiscal “consolidation plan” that the Government has ignored.
The Vox spokeswoman has attacked the “more than 40 tax increases” carried out by the coalition government that have turned Spain into a “fiscal hell”.
Our proposal, recalled Cañizares, involves making “zero-based” Budgets that eliminate the deficit and debt by “optimizing” public accounts and removing “all confiscatory taxes.”
The PP and Vox accuse the Government of hiding and dividing up employment with discontinuous landlines
The PP assures that the Government “has hidden employment” with the data of the discontinuous landlines, a criticism that has been joined by Vox, which believes that the work has been cut up, accusations rejected by PSOE and Sumar, which have highlighted the reduction of temporary employment with the labor reform.
In his speech, the Secretary of Economy in the Executive of the PP, Luis Alberto Marín, has reproached the Government that in its statistics there are “hidden jobs”, since they do not detail when a discontinuous permanent worker is active, and therefore contributing to the affiliation data, or inactive, appearing in the unemployed.
In the same sense, the deputy mayor of Toledo and who has served as Vox’s economic spokesperson in Congress, Inés Cañizares, has pointed out that the labor reform has not created more employment, but has “cut it up” by promoting the figure of permanent workers discontinuous, which count the inactive as employees.
For her part, the Secretary of Industry, Commerce and Tourism of the Federal Executive of the PSOE and candidate for Congress for Alicante, Patricia Blanquer, explained that discontinuous landlines “have been with us for many years: if they are active, they appear as employees and if they are not, as unemployed. I don’t understand the discussion.”
“I understand that it hurts you that you have not achieved the transformation of the discontinuous fixed lines,” the Secretary of State for Social Rights and economic spokesman for Sumar, Nacho Álvarez, has reproached Marín.
Proposals for the next legislature
Blanquer has valued the achievements obtained by the coalition government in a very difficult time, with a pandemic and a war at the gates of Europe, and they have mainly highlighted the figure of the ERTE that protected employment and prevented the destruction of companies and increases in the minimum wage.
“This has been the legislature in which we have experienced the most abrupt economic crisis since the civil war,” highlighted the Sumar spokesman, who also valued the record of affiliation and the reduction in the temporary rate achieved with the labor reform .
As proposals for the future, he has highlighted the improvement of conciliation, with a reduction in the working day without a decrease in salary, among others.
The PP spokesman has assessed the need to improve the training and requalification of workers as levers to boost employment and has defended portable individual accounts, nourished with contributions from the company and workers, which may be used in certain cases such as layoffs.
This measure, also known as the “Austrian backpack”, has been criticized by Sumar’s spokesperson, who has considered that, while ERTEs protect jobs and avoid layoffs, portable individual accounts encourage them.
The Vox spokeswoman has proposed reducing social contributions that represent “a tax on work” and end up reducing hiring, a situation that she has compared to a tax on tobacco, which causes people to stop smoking.
Sumar and PSOE accuse PP and Vox of making the problem of the occupation “ridiculous”
Sumar has accused the right-wing parties of raising the problem of illegal occupation of housing “to ridicule”, a criticism shared by the PSOE during the debate with economic spokesmen organized by the EFE Agency, in which PP and Vox have promised express layoffs.
The Secretary of State for Social Rights and economic spokesman for Sumar, Nacho Álvarez, explained that in 2022 there were only 2,000 lawsuits for occupation, which represents 0.01% of the “stock” of housing in Spain, while the Secretary of Economy in the Executive of the PP, Luis Alberto Marín, has highlighted that there are currently 100,000 homes that he has promised to evict in 24 hours if the popular govern.
The Secretary for Industry, Commerce and Tourism of the PSOE Executive, Patricia Blanquer, has indicated that the real problem is access to housing, contrary to what was stated by Vox’s economic spokesperson in Congress, Inés Cañizares, who has ensured that the housing law penalizes the honest owner and protects the delinquent.