Budget law? More lights than shadows
The speech by Michele Poerio, national president of Federspev, and by Carlo Sizia of the national steering committee Federspev
The Chamber approved on 30/12 us, with a vote of confidence and the usual maxi-amendment unsettling with respect to the original bill, the maneuver in question of 1,032 paragraphs, which is worth approximately 36.5 billion in total and which provides coverage for only 13, 2 billion (resulting from 5.3 billion in spending cuts and 7.9 billion in new revenue), while 23.3 billion are deficit measures.
We mention only some of the most significant rules: a (modest) cut of IRPEF with 4 rates (the 41% one disappears, but the last one, of 43%, starts from € 50,000, instead of € 55,000). The rates of 23% and 43% are confirmed, while the second falls by 2% (now 25%) and the third by 3% (now 35%), with relative benefits for incomes between € 35,000 and € 50,000 gross / year; reduction of contributions, limited to 2022, for income up to € 35,000; farewell to IRAP for almost 900,000 VAT numbers (among professionals, simple companies, sole proprietorships); construction bonuses confirmed (renovations, earthquake bonus, garden bonus, purchase of furniture and large appliances, facades and architectural barriers bonuses, eco bonus, super bonus of 110%) but with a different calendar; with the dowry of 5 billion, the wages supplementation scheme extends to all subordinate workers; confirmed, but with decreasing amounts on a multi-year basis, the tax credits for Research & Development, including Aid 4.0 (technological goods, up to 2025) and Nuova Sabatini (purchase or leasing of capital goods, up to 2027); the National Health Fund is fed with 2 new billion / year, with 124 billion expected in 2022; the ceiling of € 240,000 / year set today for the remuneration of the top management of the Public Administration is no more; resources planned to overcome the freeze on the ancillary salary of public employees; the resources to calm energy bills through interventions on VAT and system charges have risen, up to 3.8 billion; the remuneration for the Statutory Auditors increases; the IRPEF deduction is extended for rental contracts stipulated by young people up to the age of 31 and for the first 4 years of the contract; stable funds foreseen for nursery schools; over the next three years, the charges associated with the payment of the arrears of the 2019-21 public service contracts (approximately 3 billion) will be fully operational; among the social security measures, once the quota is 100, the “quota 102” (64 years of age and 38 of contributions) will be valid for 2022, with windows of 3 months for the private sector and 6 for the public; confirmed for 2022 "woman option", ie the possibility of early retirement, but calculated entirely with the contribution method, upon reaching 35 years of contributions and 58 years of age if employed (59, if autonomous) and a 12-month window ( 18 months, if autonomous); the burdensome activities for the social Ape pension advance are extended (63 years of age and 36 of contributions, but with a reduction to 32 years of contributory age for builders and "potters"); the return to the indexation criterion of retirement pensions "in brackets on the basis of the different amounts of the single allowance" had already been envisaged, starting from 01/01/2022, by law 160/2019, thus putting an end to the persistence that lasted 10 years against pensions over 3-4 times the INPS minimum; a considerable boost is finally given to public investments (doubling of resources in three years); the citizenship income confirmed and financed for another two years, with more attention to avoid abuses; again postponed the plastic tax and the sugar tax; etc. etc.
Way of legislating
Never as this year has Parliament's examination of the provision in question been hasty and superficial. In fact, it was examined by the Senate (first reading) on 22-23 December, in a few hours it was examined and voted on by the competent Budget Commission, to be gathered in the Chamber (complete with a maxi-amendment and vote of confidence) on the night of 12/24 us, where it was approved. A similar procedure took place in the Chamber (second reading), where examination (so to speak) and voting (always with the imposition of the question of trust) and final approval in the first hours took place in two days (28 and 29/12). of 12/30/2021 (with publication in the Official Gazette no. 310 of 12/31/2021, Suppl. Ord. N. 49).
All this despite the fact that the latest public accounting reform law (2016) had provided that "micro sectorial and localistic regulations" must be excluded in provisions of this nature and that the Council (early 2019) had "ordered" that parliamentarians however, "the faculty to collaborate knowingly in the formation of the text must be guaranteed". Did the Presidents of the Council and of the Republic, whose "beatification in life" is underway, notice anything? The Chamber, as a whole, did not contribute in any way to the formation of the text: single chamber in fact, but not in law.
Comparison between Government and Social Partners
Among the social partners, this government too has practically granted the exclusivity of the representation of the active world of work to CGIL, CISL and UIL and to Confindustria, confirming a blindness, now historical, with respect to real society. As a thank you, CGIL and UIL (fortunately not the CISL) proclaimed a general strike for December 16, struggling to find the reasons after such close involvement in the drafting of the budget law, but blathering on the fact that the IRPEF reform it would not have respected the much celebrated "progressiveness" in tax matters.
This is a pretext, in fact, as it can be said that an IRPEF discount of € 270 / year (income over € 75,000) can affect the progressivity of taxation when (2020 data) 3.92% of total taxpayers (income over 55,000 €) bears 31% of the total IRPEF weight, while almost 50% of theoretical taxpayers pay nothing, or almost nothing, and in the new IRPEF articulation, incomes between € 40,000 and € 50,000 touch a discount of € 1,000 / year?
We are at the stale revival of class hatred and arrogance of attitudes. To adequately represent the workers (active or retired) it is not enough to have read (perhaps in the "Bignami") Carlo Marx, but one must know how to look to the future no less than to the past: in this regard we recall the unequal clash between the FIAT manager, Sergio Marchionne, and Maurizio Landini, at the time still a representative of metalworkers. Unfortunately, as Beppe Grillo would like, “one is not worth one”, but it differs from its fellow man even in its fingerprints. The CISL did not participate in the "representation" and the strike was a "failure", demonstrating that the representatives often have more heads than their representatives.
PNRR and objectives of the budget law
In spring 2021 Italy approved the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which aims to favor: digitization, innovation, competitiveness, green revolution and ecological transition, infrastructures and sustainable mobility, education and research, cohesion and inclusion and always adequate health . European resources for around 200 billion euros are linked to these objectives: these are not "gifts", but grants and loans (about one third non-repayable, two thirds in the form of low-interest loans, and as such must be returned), which must be authorized in advance and subsequently verified in the effective implementation.
It is a great opportunity, but not so easy to achieve: the Italian story of the use of European funding is not brilliant. Likewise, the Government's objectives in the budget law are not easy (deficit / GDP ratio in 2022 around 5%; debt / GDP ratio at 150% or slightly below; real GDP growth of 4.7% and nominal GDP of 6%. , 4%). In fact, we are concerned about the current surge in inflation (and therefore the interest on our maxi-debt), the resurgence of the Sars-Cov 2 epidemic, the increase in the costs of energy goods (electricity, gas, oil and materials prime in general), the risk also of political instability and the possible easing of the ECB's support policies on sovereign debts.
Even this budget law does not appear to be concentrated in a few objectives that are certainly effective in terms of development and employment, but disperses resources in a series of old and new discounts (subsidized rates, tax credits, deductions-deductions, exemptions, postponements, etc. ), calculated by Il Sole 24 Ore of 2 January in 24 billion, to satisfy pressure groups or sub-government practices. Even the IRPEF micro-discount must not deceive because the tax pressure of 2022 is in any case expected to grow by 6.4%, not only due to the increase in GDP, but above all in VAT and indirect taxes (+ 9%) favored also from the 110% success of the superbonus. The dissonance with the guidelines of the delegated tax law, which aims at rationalizing and reducing too many tax expenditures, is also surprising.
Pandemic and State-Regions-Provinces-Municipalities relations
The sad circumstance of the pandemic in progress has also shown how badly designed and implemented the reform of Title V of the Constitution (law 3/2001), which has led to organizational chaos and conflict of attributions between different Bodies and Institutions of the same State. Action must be taken and corrected as soon as possible.
The NHS itself proved to be lacking especially in territorial healthcare, but hospitals also went into trouble (insufficient facilities, equipment, staff, beds for isolation, infectious diseases, pneumology, long-term hospitalization, resuscitation and intensive care, etc. ).
The mass media completed the negative picture, distributing disinformation and / or alarmism and the Italian virologists, who struttered on TV, crediting themselves as experts, but who in reality did not know this virus, and do not know, in fact, complicit in the variants. delta and omicron, they haven't guessed one, which is one.
On the pandemic front, Mario Draghi, who was not helped by the ineffable Minister of Health, and Gen. Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, who took charge of the vaccination campaign, must be "saved". Worst of all have done, always in our opinion, the no-vax, who have not been able to protect themselves, their family, the community from an objective danger, which as prevention is only vaccinated, even repeated, until the pandemic ends. it will downgrade to endemic. Surely the 36 billion of the MES would have been convenient in 2020, with the only conditionality of the commitment made in the health sector, and not used for exclusively ideological motions.
Draghi government and reforms
The Draghi government started with a Garibaldian step, but in the continuation the pace seemed slower and more tired, like a "grandfather", even if it was certainly committed to the tasks assigned to it by Mattarella: restarting the economy beyond the logical "rebound" after the frost of 2020 and fight the pandemic.
However, the pandemic has not yet been defeated, we are always in an emergency, and the economic and social situation presents more shadows than lights. Even the reforms launched so far do not seem courageous and decisive, for example on the tax authorities, on justice (the one on prescription or the one that is expected on the CSM), on the relocation of Italian companies, on simplifications, etc.
We believe that, more than on Draghi, it depends on the Italian parties, which for years have been “little thing”, incapable of elaborating and far-sighted strategies, but eager to manage power, subdivisions, favors, clientele. The M5S, then, has become a container, still large in parliamentary terms, but empty of content, with even three "masters": Grillo, Di Maio, Conte.
The foreseeable wear and tear of the Draghi Government is already widely underway with relative conditioning of the political future of the same, a future that may evolve in two logical directions: the first at the Quirinale and influence the activity of the Government, the second remain at Palazzo Chigi on the prepared grill. by the parties mentioned above with their crossed vetoes and with all the consequences of the case.
Election of the President of the Republic
We are on the eve of the election of the new Head of State. In the absence of a Luigi Einaudi or Alcide De Gasperi, we believe that the most qualified, most credible, recognized and appreciated person, even more internationally than nationally, is today Mario Draghi.
Woe to Italy should it happen, before the natural end of the current legislature, that Draghi could no longer be at Palazzo Chigi, or even at the Quirinale, and this for obvious reasons of our relations with Europe and for the security of our maxi-debt on international financial markets. Even the revival of a Mattarella-bis, after the tear of Napolitano, seems unlikely to us.
What is certain is that a Draghi at the Quirinale would be less conditioned by the parties, which already show signs of intolerance for not being on the front line. However, this step is delicate and must be managed with great clarity and responsibility. Never as in this moment we would like Parties, and their leaders, serious, but if there are, they really do not appear, without distinction of any kind. Then all that remains is to entrust ourselves to God.
Dear Friends and Colleagues, as you can see, the problems for our country are really not lacking, however we sincerely wish you a good 2022, if not really happy, at least peaceful and healthy.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/legge-di-bilancio-piu-luci-che-ombre/ on Thu, 06 Jan 2022 06:17:45 +0000.