Unlike other rather decorative and clientelistic portfolios in the most oversized government of democracy, the ministry led by José Luis Escrivá has to manage very serious competencies.

In their hands is the most pressing challenge of our welfare state: the sustainability of pensions.

But if, when he headed the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility, he could unleash his technical profile, under Sánchez's orders and in coalition with Podemos

, Minister Escrivá too often composes the snubbed figure of the unauthorized technocrat.

by ideological activism and by electoral strategy. That is to say, for the sanchismo. Examples of this were his clashes with Iglesias on account of the design of the minimum income or the balloon probe of the extension of the retirement age, an idea that he had to withdraw as soon as he suggested it. But the elephant is still in the room: pensions are unsustainable.

After repealing the sustainability factor approved by the PP and linking its revaluation to the CPI, our pension system faces the perfect storm: massive retirements of the

baby boom

generation

, high structural unemployment (especially youth), the threat of inflation -which will skyrocket the cost of pensions, an item that accounts for about 45% of the General State Budgets- and the low productivity of our economic model, worsened by an educational reform that puts excellence under suspicion. Something has to be done and Escrivá knows it. But since the Frankenstein government it serves seems ontologically

incapable both to adjust on the spending side and to renounce the infantilization of public opinion

With unpopular truths, all the solutions that Escrivá can think of are to further burden the backs of the long-suffering middle class, squeezing taxes from employers and salaried employees while demonizing the alternative of private pension plans by penalizing savings.

The proposal to cover for a decade - or two, or three - the hole in pensions by increasing the social contributions of workers has aroused the logical indignation of the employers. In a country with a structural problem of job creation - the good data for October do not hide the basically temporary modality of the jobs that are created - adding another tax on work will discourage hiring. But also

the logic of intergenerational solidarity breaks down when all political action is aimed at protecting the purchasing power of pensioners

at the cost of abandoning young people and cracking the expectation of active taxpayers to get to enjoy a decent pension in their life. day.

It's not just a patch - it's a counterproductive patch, because it will hurt growth and drive investment away.

The last thing our shaky system needs is

another burdensome and short-term occurrence imposed against the criteria of those who create the wealth that sustains the welfare state: entrepreneurs.

Those whom this Government regards as dairy cows to be milked to distribute today's livelihood, forgetting tomorrow's hunger.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Jose Luis Escrivá

  • We can

  • PP

  • State's general budgets

  • ERTE

  • Pensions

  • Pedro Sanchez

  • Pablo Iglesias

  • Editorial

EditorialA president without popular support

EditorialThe impossibility of satisfying both Yolanda Díaz and Europe

EditorialRunaway spending makes the economy unsustainable

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