Giorgia Meloni and Giancarlo Giorgetti
By cutting resources to municipalities the result will be an increase in municipal tax pressure
Pending yesterday's very long press conference Giorgia Meloni, all in defense and complete with a little pee break, many have missed a very important phrase which will have potentially devastating effects for citizens. On the other hand, the focus was entirely on the Pozzolo case, Anas-Verdini-Salvini and the European dossiers. But the Prime Minister stated: “I am not in favor of increasing taxes, if I have to work, I work on the issue of cutting spending, we have done it with this budget law. Let's see what the evolution will be this year, I trust that throughout this year we can be reasonable and imagine a decrease in interest rates which would free up various resources on Italian debt”.
These words in response to a question about how it will re-finance the cut tax wedge for 2025 for medium-low incomes which costs around 10 billion euros. Not only that, we will also have to work on the social security system again to avoid a return to the Fornero Law after the renewal of Quota 103 with heavy penalties. Majority sources explain that, barring miracles on the part of the ECB of a strong reduction in interest rates that would reduce public debt (at the moment a very distant hypothesis), only spending cuts remain.
But where exactly? There healthcare, already in collapse it certainly cannot be touched. Indeed, if anything, new investments should be made also to avoid the flight of doctors and nurses abroad. Even in the school sector, the cut is impossible given that resources are already reduced to the bare minimum. Obviously Fratelli d'Italia and the League do not intend to touch the sector of safety, key point of the centre-right's political action. And even on defense it is not possible to act as there are commitments with NATO and as Meloni, as president of the G7, confirmed his total support, including military support, for Zelensky's Ukraine.
So? Simple. All that remains are the local authorities. Not so much the regions, given that the two-year period 2024-2025 will probably see the implementation of autonomy, but those who will be hit hard – according to what appears to Affaritaliani.it – will be the transfers of resources to municipalities, both large cities and medium-small ones. “Unavoidable“, explain qualified sources. And this will mean a cut in many services for citizens such as municipal nursery and nursery schools, local transport, road maintenance and all those tasks that are the responsibility of municipal administrations.
Not only that, even though Meloni said he did not want to raise taxes, cutting resources to municipalities the result will be an increase in the municipal tax burden, therefore the rate for employees, taxes for traders and also other taxes such as those on waste. In short, the blanket is short. In fact, very short. And not being able to do it deficit, barring unlikely miracles from the ECB, the blow will fall on the municipalities and then on the citizens. Obviously no one in the centre-right will say this before the European elections.
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