In Italy there is a "single party of public spending”. That is, all, or almost all, political forces think that spending borrowed public money is a game in which everyone gains and no one is called upon to pay the bill. Veronica DeRomanis just posted at Mondadori an agile volume, easily understandable even to non-experts “The free meal – Ten years of public spending without apparent costs”, in which he explains the deceptions perpetrated by various political parties against citizens and the damage created in our economy and in the functioning of democracy itself by making people believe that the unlimited increase in public spending, and therefore of the debt that accumulates due to large annual deficits, is the solution for citizens' aspirations and for the general growth problems of the entire country.
Governments: "gift" competition from 2013 to today
It's an impressive story: all governments from 2013 onwards have competed to give something to citizens by using borrowed money and saying that those debts would repay themselves thanks to the growth of the entire economy.
Compounding the problem is the fact that those debts were rarely, if ever, made for finance reforms or investments useful to make the country more competitive and therefore truly create the conditions for greater growth. Instead that money was given in most cases for increase incomes of citizens or for send them into retirement early of time, or for grant privileges to this or that corporation. These expenses were almost always justified by the need to keep private consumption high without worrying too much about the fact that in an economy open to world markets like ours, it is not at all certain that citizens' purchases will be directed towards Italian products and not rather towards goods manufactured abroad.
De Romanis has done a valuable job of collecting documentation from the last ten years, integrated with statements from the major political leaders, which demonstrates how much the Italian citizens have been mocked by skilled barkers who promise free meals for everyone they gathered consensus only to experience, after a few years, the loss of those ephemeral electoral fortunes due to the disappointment of the voters who did not see those resounding promises realized. And in fact, never more than in recent years, electoral mobility was so strong and many leaders have passed from the altars to the dust in a short time.
Easy shopping is a vice that goes back a long way: Andreotti began
In truth the tendency towards easy spending it began well before the decade examined by the book. Many of the older people remember the baby pensions wanted by Andreotti or the famous phrase by Ferdinando Ventriglia, director general of the Treasury, according to which it would have been appropriate for the State to spend much more, even "throwing money out the window".
But in the past decade it has manifested itself a new and worrying phenomenon: after the Monti government called upon to avoid the failure towards which the Berlusconi-Bossi government had led us, and which had succeeded with measures that were all in all not so heavy, in stopping the arrival of the Troika, the political forces instead of making the most of that experience they put themselves to speak ill of austerity, to pursue Grillo in his extravagant theories on how to remedy the failures (real or presumed) of the ruling classes. They then launched themselves onto the plan of easy promises, possible gifts for everyone. The result was that beyond the chatter, public spending, or at least that type of public spending, did not bring significant increases in GDP. It was clarified that the real problems of our country are elsewhere and they are not treated with public spending. And they range from the inefficiency of services, starting with public ones, to the poor training of staff, the inadequacy of infrastructure, to the distortions that the various corporations impose on the proper functioning of the State and markets.
Someone, namely Renzi, had certainly used public spending, then called flexibility, in an unscrupulous manner, but he had also attempted to profound reforms starting with schools, the labor market and finally institutional structures to make public authorities work better. But the reforms failed while the debts made to give more or less generous bonuses to citizens remained.
The worst wasters of public money are M5S and Lega
They were certainly the worst 5 Stars and League. If we look at Conte's policies whose main provisions are the CBI, cashback, and the Super bonus 110%, it is clearly understood that the former Prime Minister knows nothing about economics, but has a strong ability to tell fairy tales which then have no bearing on reality. It is surprising that such a party still has a following and that some members of the Democratic Party, starting with Romano Prodi, are thinking of an alliance with him when it is clearly understood that Conte is an enemy of the Democratic Party and above all of Italy.
Salvini it is no less. The representative of the productive North, which trades with the whole world, has brought in people like Borghi and Bagnai who supported our convenience to exit the Euro and Europe, that money is not a problem because if needed the Italian central bank can print more banknotes, which could have been done pension at sixty in order to hire more young people. Which, as we know, didn't happen at all.
Salvini defends not only the Northern Regions, but above all the municipal capitalism that is, those public companies controlled by local authorities which are a source of waste and burdens placed on citizens and businesses.
Severe is also the judgment on the Draghi government accused on the one hand of having invented the concept of "good debt” which in the end gave a new push to the hungry political classes to increase spending and debt, and on the other for not having had the courage to propose a profound revision of both the citizen's income and the superbonus.
Perhaps we should take into greater account that in a dramatic situation such as that of the Covid pandemic and the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine, Draghi played a fundamental role for the country, putting his credibility and his authority at our service, something that Conte certainly could not have done.
At the end of this gallery of horrors one comes to think sadly of Laocoön who, according to Virgil, had advised the Trojans against letting the famous horse enter the city. “Timeo danaos et dona ferentes”. If instead of the Greeks we use political parties, the warning is very good for our fellow citizens, especially if we take the more modern versions of the translation from the Latin: I fear politicians especially when they bring (only) gifts. De Romanis' book would be a useful reminder for Meloni who, at least in part, seems to have understood that the era of irresponsible easy spending is over, but above all it should be read by citizens, starting with the youngest, to understand and not fall into the traps of bad politics.
