The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, was right in calling the parties, in his year-end message, to make realistic and concrete proposals in view of the general elections on 4 March next. It is enough to read the programs of the main political forces to realize that we are dealing with real dream books but that no one remembers the monstrous size of the public debt.
The centre-right and the Five Stars are competing to promise tips to everyone (one calls them "dignity income" and the others "citizenship income") and lower taxes but without reckoning with the innkeeper. Not even the Democratic Party, which would like to lower taxes for the less well-off classes even at the cost of raising the public deficit to 2,9% of GDP, has all it takes.
Il Sole 24 Ore has quantified the cost of electoral promises for next March 130 at 4 billion euros, to which another 140 billion should be added for the eventual abolition of the Fornero law on pensions claimed by the League.
In more detail, according to the calculations of the economic newspaper, the Flat Tax proposed by Forza Italia and Lega would cost between 30 and 40 billion, while the cost of the basic income of the Five Stars or of the income of dignity desired by Silvio Berlusconi would be between 15 and 17 billion, to which must be added 18 billion for raising the minimum pensions to one thousand euros a month and 13 for the cancellation of the Irap proposed by Forza Italia.
The costs of the Pd's tax proposals are more contained but still raise the budget: between 12 and 14 billion for the remodulation of the Irpef, to which add 5-6 billion for the wider re-edition of the 80 euro bonus for the lower classes.
To all this should be added 24 billion for the abolition of the Fiscal Compact claimed by Pd and Lega, but it is the proposal by Salvini's party to cancel the Fornero Law that blows up the bank with its 140 billion cost and with dramatic consequences on the social security system and the state budget.
