Di Maio-Salvini: a government to sink Italy

Many political commentators on TV and in the newspapers are more or less openly rooting for the birth of a 5 Star-League government. Everyone is passionate about the interpretations of the half sentences uttered by this or that protagonist, such as that of the German-style written pact, as if it were a revolutionary thing, forgetting that Prodi had made the parties of his coalition sign a program of almost 200 pages, which however did not prevent the fall of his government after just two years. Others venture to identify the points of convergence between the two parties that "almost won" the elections, obtaining with satisfaction the highlighting of many points of contact, from sovereignty, to state interventionism in the economy as we begin to see on the Telecom case or as foreseen for Alitalia or Ilva, as well as for the creation of a phantom public bank to give loans to small businesses.

Of course, there seems to be broad agreement on so-called social policies, from the fight against poverty to the abolition/revision of Fornero.

Hardly anyone seems to wonder if such policies are really suitable for healing the country's ills and if, for example, the vaunted recovery of national sovereignty with a consequent increase in public spending, does not risk aggravating our problems ending up leading to a new economic crisis.

There are also those who delude themselves that once in government, Grillini and Lega supporters will necessarily have to forget electoral promises and follow in the footsteps of previous governments in particular, as Travaglio and his followers affirm, in foreign and European policy.

In reality, even if today the tones are much more nuanced than during the electoral campaign, not only is there no evidence of a decisive change of course on the part of the winning parties, but on the contrary, serious indications remain of their persistence of ideas wrong that would lead in a totally opposite direction to the desired one. Nobody seems to be interested in some fundamental and priority aspects of the policies to be implemented. In the first place, the need to continue and indeed strengthen the recovery underway, albeit at a slower pace, is in any case a good starting point. And to do this it would be necessary to continue with policies capable of strengthening competitiveness (a word never uttered by Salvini or Di Maio) and to face the new turbulence of the international market induced by the risk of a war on tariffs. Duties that Salvini instead threatens to impose with great superficiality for a country that thrives on international trade and which has a trade balance surplus of 50 billion euros.

Secondly, it would be necessary to clarify which reforms would still be needed to create a more favorable environment for private investment and to really stimulate the creation of modern infrastructure by overcoming bureaucratic vetoes and financial shortcomings. But no one seems interested in justice reform, streamlining the participation of local authorities in service companies, the efficiency of the PA and institutions. Everything seems to be solved only by expanding public spending mainly of the welfare type, financed with unrealistic systems such as reducing the cost of politics and the fight against corruption. Hence the epochal battle against the annuities of former parliamentarians (for the current ones they have already been abolished), the reduction of the allowances for their position or the service machine, and above all the idea that from the elimination of corruption it is possible to obtain astronomical figures from redistribute to citizens. It has been demonstrated that in Italy the perception of corruption is much higher than the actual extent of the phenomenon and that if anything the problem is that of widespread illegality and therefore of the "black" that too many citizens of all classes now habitually use. But the fight against corruption makes it possible to say that the politicians of all the other parties are corrupt or in the service of hidden powers, and therefore offers a greater political dividend than what one would get from a real fight against the undeclared or the many sly people who take from State more than their due, from disability pensions, to the chronic absenteeism of public employees, especially in the South, where the grillini got full marks.

Finally, it should be clarified that unlike other countries, the Italian problem is not that of the growth of inequalities but the overall one of the drop in income and the loss of visibility on the path to improving one's position. In short, it is a problem of structure and not of subsidies, of active labor policies and not of fake jobs in the public sector or in decoded companies. In short, the problem is to make the GDP grow more and not just to redistribute income.

President Mattarella is doing everything possible to clarify many points of the program a hypothetical M5S-Lega government. But a serious debate is needed in the country to avoid creating a government that could have dramatic consequences for the whole country and above all for the less well-off classes.