Also on the Budget law 2025 Meloni disappoints again, that is, he betrays not only his electoral promises (which were pure fantasy), but also his programmatic declarations pronounced at the time of the installation of his government. This is in fact a Budget law old style, there is nothing innovative, there is no soul that indicates in which direction we want to go to keep faith with the commitment declared several times, of wanting to open a new phase for our economy and for the entire country.
After i hesitations in foreign policy, with the extravagant positions on the use of the weapons we supply to Ukraine, and with the coldness towards Israel which is fighting for its survival, it is now clear that even in economic policy the government does not know what to do.
As former Minister of Economy Giovanni Tria claims, it is a good thing that it is a poor maneuver because it doesn't do any damage in the sense that it manages to contain the deficit within reasonable limits, so much so that the markets have reacted quite well and above all the spread has not soared.
The absence of credible measures for growth
But the positive things end here. As Carlo Cottarelli wrote there is a lack of credible measures in favor of growth. On the one hand, we limit ourselves to confirming the deductions contributory e tax already in force and on the other hand to put together some one-off revenues once again like that on banks, or deriving from cuts imposed on ministries and local authorities which risk leading to a reduction in investment spending given that cutting current spending is not at all simple.
Extra profits and excise duties: a dangerous game for the market and the environment
Even more serious than the amount of withdrawals is the signal that is sent to the market. On banks, after having “chattered” for a long time about extra profits, we ended up asking for a loan by postponing the calculation of some deductions that will be recovered later. But just talking about extra profits certainly does not do any good to investors, especially foreign ones, that we would like to attract to Italy! And fortunately nothing has been done about the Excise since the idea of increase those on Diesel and reducing those on petrol was absolutely in contradiction with the environmental objectives since diesel emits much less CO2 than petrol. It is therefore absurd to facilitate the latter and penalise diesel.
Tax, ineffective cuts: wasted opportunity for young people
As regards the confirmation of the tax wedge cut and Personal income tax for low incomes it is a measure that does not bring any new benefits to citizens but that avoids a potential increase in taxation on the paycheck. In short, everything remains as it is today. The mistake was made last year when a supposedly permanent expense was financed with one-off revenues.
On the other hand, the progressivity of the tax on medium-high incomes has been increased, significantly reducing the tax deductions. This also contradicts our country's need to retain the brightest young people who prefer to go abroad where salaries are higher.
Public Spending: Ineffective Reforms and Stalled Investments
There is nothing on the side of the cut costs, apart from a linear cut at the last minute. A cut that should instead be based on a serious policy of review and reorganization of the public machine by looking for the real waste. Even on the investment side, the reasons for the flop of the expenses for Pnrr stopped at just 20 billion while this year they were expected to be more than double.
A fiscal policy to be rethought
In short, as Enzo Cipolletta, economist and current president of Italian publishers, claims, perhaps we will be able to keep public finances under control, but for the rest we are walking in the tradition of recent years and this is certainly not positive. In reality, the fiscal policy It is held prisoner on the one hand by European rules and on the other by the need to extend what was granted in the past, and which would be politically and economically impossible to remove.
If we broaden our gaze to the whole of Europe, we see the paradox of a situation in which no country is growing (apart from a few small exceptions such as Spain), but the rules require all states to implement a substantially restrictive fiscal policy.
Cipolletta has long been arguing that in this situation a expansive policy by Brussels. It is obvious that individual states, as in the US, must keep the budget in order, but then we would need a federal authority that spends when necessary to keep the growth rate high. We Europeans are still far from this arrangement. But by now it is something so obvious that we will necessarily have to move towards the creation of a European ministry of the economy equipped with the appropriate financial instruments.
Budget 2025: a wasted opportunity for courage and vision
Ultimately we are faced with a Budget law without courage and without visionMinister Giorgetti managed to calm the bellicose intentions of many of his government colleagues who would have liked to spend much more on pension increases or the extension of the flat tax, but he certainly did not use the time he had well to propose some measure capable of giving a pro-growth signal, pro-increase in the productivity of the system, starting a serious review of public spending where so much waste is hidden.
