Argentine Congress Delivers Another Blow to ‘Chainsaw’ Milei

Sept. 20—Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies last week voted overwhelmingly to override President Javier Milei’s vetoes of two key pieces of social legislation the Senate had voted up just two weeks ago. The Peronist opposition in the Unity for the Fatherland (UxP) coalition was joined by factions of other parties, including legislators allied with the government, to reject the vetoes of the University Financing Law, to allow funding of public universities, and of the Pediatric Emergency Law to ensure necessary financing of the Garrahan pediatric hospital, renown throughout Ibero-America for the excellence of its pediatric healthcare. Milei had so savagely slashed the Garrahan’s budget that its continued functioning was in jeopardy.

As thousands of state-sector workers, healthcare workers, university professors and students, trade union leaders, and many more gathered outside the Congress to demand the veto override, deputies voted by 174-65 with two abstentions to override the University Financing Law veto, and then by 181-60 with 1 abstention to override the Pediatric Emergency Law veto. For both bills, Milei had claimed that increased financing would destroy the “fiscal balance” which was the basis of his killer macroeconomic program. Doctors, nurses, medical personnel, university professors and staff had been forced out of their jobs due to Milei’s fanatical messianic commitment to “chainsaw” economics.

La Politica Online headlined its coverage, “A Historic Whacking for Milei,” noting the opposition had “pulverized” his vetoes. This is not auspicious for Milei’s scandal-ridden government as he begins his Freedom Advances Party’s (LLA) campaign for the national mid-term elections on Oct. 26. As citizens poured out onto the streets to celebrate the congressional vote, the besieged Milei returned from a trip to Paraguay to hunker down in the Presidential residence with his entire cabinet to figure out their next steps.