Moreno squares the circle and promises more social spending with less taxes

The Government of Juanma Moreno believes it has found the formula that will allow it to increase social spending (education, health, dependency and other social services) despite having lowered taxes.

The increase in income as a result of the reactivation of the economy and, above all, the arrival of European funds, has allowed, theoretically, to square the circle.

The 2023 budget will grow by around 5,000 million euros and this increase will be reflected in the main spending packages, which are those that correspond to public services.

"No one has ever lowered taxes so much and no one has ever raised social spending so much," the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, insisted this Thursday in the control session in

, after advancing some of the macro figures of next year's accounts , which will be approved this Friday in an extraordinary Governing Council.

At the expense of knowing the details of the project, the Andalusian Government has already pointed out that Andalusian health will receive the "record figure" of 13,800 million euros, 11% more than what is contemplated in 2022. That is, 1,350 million euros more than the current year.

This will allow, for example, to maintain 400 school nurses and 400 nurses for reception consultations in health centers, the Andalusian Executive also points out.

Of course, these functions, which did not exist before the pandemic, have been assumed by the ordinary primary care staff, which, yes, have been reinforced in recent years with extraordinary contracts related to covid.

In

the Board announces that the budget will increase by 15%, that is, 1,127 million euros with respect to the provisions in 2022. This increase will make it possible to fulfill the Ministry's commitment to improve teachers' salaries and equate them with the Spanish average.

Or renew the textbooks, which in Andalusia are free for the compulsory stages of education.

In total, the item amounts to 8,514 million euros.

As for the budget of the

the increase is 14.3% (340 million more than in 2022), reaching 2,720 million.

This item includes, for example, a program to activate youth employment with incentives for hiring for an amount of 70 million euros.

With all this, the Andalusian Government stresses that more than half of the budget is allocated to social policies, specifically 57 of every 100 euros.

According to the Chairman of the Board, it is an "unprecedented" commitment to "protect the most vulnerable".

“Can anyone claim that we are cutting back or privatizing?” he asked rhetorically.

In the last week, and in different public appearances, Moreno has been advancing other figures of his budget project.

And yesterday he presented them again in Parliament: 25 percent more for water works, up to 450 million, with the intention of mobilizing a total of 4,000 million until 2027, within what has been presented as the SOS Plan for cope with drought.

In the same way, he announced an "unpublished figure" for employment policies, amounting to 1,100 million, 181 million more than in the previous year.

And different actions and programs aimed at "strengthening the productive fabric" worth 6,000 million, which means an increase of 35%.

The European funds that will be included in next year's accounts exceed 5,500 million.

Therefore, since the small print of the project will not be known until today, it is difficult to know how much of the increase in the different items depends on the arrival of European

and how much comes from a real increase in own income.

All income linked to the

funds are finalists and, therefore, their destination is predetermined by the commitments made by the Government of Spain.

The margin of the Board to decide on them is limited.

On the other hand, the resources from own income allow a greater margin of maneuver in the so-called «self-financed» policies.

In global terms, the Board's budget for 2023 will exceed 45,000 million euros, which is about 5,000 million more than the current one, which, as will be recalled, are accounts carried over from 2021, since the Government of Juanma Moreno He did not have an absolute majority a year ago and did not get the endorsement of the Chamber for his project, after Vox withdrew the support that had allowed them to carry out the 2019, 2020 and 2021 accounts.

In addition to writing down the most important amounts of the 2023 accounts, Moreno took advantage of yesterday's control session in Parliament to once again denounce what he considers an "attack" by the Government of Pedro Sánchez on Andalusia.

The president of the Board refers to the announced "solidarity tax", which will tax assets of more than 3 million euros and which the PP considers to be an attempt to deactivate the tax reduction promoted by the Andalusian Government to attract large fortunes and investors.

"Andalusia has been attacked," said Moreno, significantly raising the tone of the criticism against Pedro Sánchez, whom he also accuses of favoring Catalonia to the detriment of Andalusia.

And he cites as an example the different level of execution registered by the investments committed by the State in both communities.

“This unfounded, unjustified and unjustifiable attack on the fiscal autonomy of Andalusia will have its appropriate response,” added the president, referring to the announced appeal before the Constitutional Court for a hypothetical invasion of regional powers.

For his part, the leader of the PSOE-A, Juan Espadas, disfigured Moreno for having become "the president of the confrontation", and criticized the management that his government is carrying out with European funds, being the community that more volume of investments has received.

Swords demanded more transparency and efficiency on the part of the Board, in the management of European funds.

Moreno replied that his government is doing in six months what the socialist executive "took five years", and pointed out that 1,200 million euros have been certified in 2021 and 1,360 in the first half of 2022.

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• Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla

• Pedro Sanchez

• John Swords

• PSOE

• constitutional Court

• PP

• vox

• Government of Spain

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