Argentina’s election: liberal candidate Milei’s platform has been leaked

In a press operation led by Natalia Volosin (Infobae, A24) and joined by several media and Kirchnerist and Juntos por el Cambio leaders, the official documents that Congressman Javier Milei submitted to the Electoral Justice last Wednesday regarding his platform of proposals were leaked.

Believing that they were going to “expose” him or damage him in some way, these operators published screenshots of the platform in an attempt to discredit him, but far from succeeding, the maneuver ended up popularizing the initiatives even more.

The presidential candidate consolidates himself as the only one who has a concrete program that tries to cut through the problems of the Argentine economy, beyond any ideological preference.

This is something that neither the presidential candidates of Juntos por el Cambio nor of Frente de Todos have.

Milei’s platform encompasses a large number of structural reforms with a certain order of implementation, and attacks all fronts of Argentina’s economic structure: the labor market, the tax system, government spending, regulatory frameworks and foreign trade.

In addition, it proposes a total reform of the health system in Argentina, of education, of prisons, it proposes a massive program to fight crime, which includes introducing the free carrying of weapons; it also proposes to eliminate the obligatory nature of ESI and gender ideology in schools and rejects abortion.

ECONOMIC REFORM

The most fundamental leg of Milei’s reforms are undoubtedly in the economy.

His proposals in this area emphasize the reorganization of government spending, ceasing to allocate resources to maintain loss-making state enterprises and prioritizing spending on infrastructure linked to favor capital returns, with a broad participation of the private sector.

A concrete response is given to the inflationary problem, the multiple conflicts between tenants and landlords over the administration of rents, the functioning of the exchange market and the country’s connectivity.

• Elimination of unproductive expenses of the State
• Optimization and downsizing of the State
• Incentives for the creation of genuine and quality jobs.
• Privatization of loss-making public enterprises
• Promotion of private investment
• Expansion of the national road network, interconnecting the different transport operations in order to facilitate local transportation and exchange.
• Creation of new ports and airports in strategic points of the country.
• Improve the quality of highways, routes and roads.
• Review State leasing contracts in order to eliminate inefficiencies.
• Elimination of the Central Bank
• Free competition of legal tender currencies (which would lead to dollarization)
• Liberalization and unification of the foreign exchange market.
• Treatment of the rent law for the deregulation of the real estate sector.

TAX REFORM

Regarding the level of taxes, Milei proposes to correct the distortion of relative prices between local and international goods, which would generate an investment boom in the most competitive sectors of the country.

It is of fundamental importance for the development of Vaca Muerta based on private initiative, with the due consequences in terms of exports and generation of foreign currency.

• Elimination of tax cuts to promote the liberation of the country’s productive forces.
• Complete elimination of all export duties.
• Establishment of a royalty and concession regime for the exploitation of natural resources.

LABOR REFORM

The provisions presented seek to make Argentine labor legislation compatible with international standards, as a fundamental tool to combat informal labor, which currently reaches 45% of the country’s workers.

It is also one of the so-called “first generation” reforms, since it is indispensable for the viability of other reforms, including monetary stability and the elimination of the Central Bank’s functions.

• New Labor Contract Law without retroactive effect, in order to eliminate severance payments and replace it with a modern unemployment insurance system.
• To reduce the employer’s charges to employers and social security charges to workers.
• Promote freedom of union association
• Recover arts and crafts schools, based on private investment.
• Creation of a public labor exchange with private financing.
• Replacement of the Labor Risks Law, without retroactive effect, by new regulations in accordance with international criteria.
• Hierarchization of the state administrative career
• Application of a voluntary retirement system for state personnel.

AGRICULTURE, LIVESTOCK, AND FISHING

This section contains a large number of initiatives aimed at stimulating the aggregate supply of the economy, in an effort to liberalize the country’s productive forces in sectors with broad comparative advantages in international trade.

• Elimination of all distorting taxes with an anti-export bias, including withholding taxes, the Gross Income Tax (IIBB), the check tax, as well as the elimination of the VAT withholding and withholding regimes.
• Elimination of rural real estate taxes throughout the country.
• Simplification of the different procedures of AFIP, SENASA, INTA and Rentas, among others.
• Repeal of the Land Law and deregulation of the purchase and sale by foreigners and residents.
• Promote an agriculture that applies good practices, contemplating soil sustainability and environmental preservation.
• Strengthen and streamline the agricultural emergency system.
• Promote tax incentives for forestry and firefighting.
• Elimination of import tariffs on fertilizers and capital goods.
• Creation of road consortiums to take care of a wide network of local roads.
• Taking the necessary measures to ensure rural safety.
• Deregulation of port regulations that establish restrictions on the storage, unloading, transfer and shipment of agricultural products.
• Care of the maritime space and avoid the illegal exploitation of the fishing territory.
• Concession and privatization system for the country’s maritime basin.
• Promotion of the industrialization of fishing through tariff reductions.

TECHNOLOGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

In his platform, Milei advocates for a technological boom in the country, hand in hand with the private sector. This is accompanied by a series of measures to deregulate the sector and promote international trade.

• Expand the shipbuilding industry.
• Encourage investment in tourism.
• Promote technological development in agriculture, fishing, mining, livestock and farming.
• Promote the emergence of “technological unicorns” based in the country, especially those focused on digital technology and artificial intelligence.
• Improve production and service processes.
• Promote the renewal of capital goods and technology.
• Incentive system for the provision of soft and long-term credits for the above-mentioned activities.
• Promote international trade agreements.
• Promote biotechnology.
• Investing in the maintenance of the current energy system.
• Promote new renewable energy sources.
• Encourage investments in communication, oil, gas, lithium and renewable energies.
• Propose to private companies the extension of sewage, electricity, drinking water and gas services in critical areas of the Nation.
• Repair and expansion of railway networks with private capital and state assistance.
• Creation of technology centers for neural networks, biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence and digitalization.
• Deregulation of the telecommunications system to strengthen 5G technology.
• Encourage the creation of recycling centers.
• Encourage investment in the creation of new highways.
• Deepen investment in research to develop nuclear generators of national industry.

Insecurity and Crime

Among other things, he proposes a strong reform of the prison system, emulating Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s measures to combat drug trafficking and reduce crime.

• Construction of penitentiary establishments (warehouses and prisons) through a public-private management system.
• Militarization of the institutions (prisons) during the transition period in order to recompose the system, particularly its personnel.
• Reformulation of the penitentiary legislation by eliminating the salaries of the inmates, who will have to work to receive money to pay for their stay and their reinsertion into society.
• Study the feasibility of lowering the age of imputability of minors.
• To speed up the criminal processes that take so long in Justice.
• To impel the treatment of projects in the chambers to eliminate of the penal legislation the guarantee clauses.
• To reorganize all the security forces, focusing on the fight against corruption.
• Contribute so that the security forces regain their professional and moral authority, training and equipping them with the necessary tools to successfully fulfill their task.
• Give special attention to the fight against drug trafficking, attacking each of the criminal cells and organizations, controlling provincial borders and air space with radars and qualified personnel, providing their personnel with protection against reprisals.
• In addition, a profound reform of the Ministry of Security is proposed, in order to have a more professionalized police force that is not subject to political ups and downs.
• It also includes the promotion of policies to introduce the free carrying of weapons in the country.
• To create a national database of persons with arrest warrants, linked to security cameras with face identification, and to promote its replication in all provinces of Argentina,
• Create a database of vehicles with impediment to circulate linked to security cameras with vehicle domain reader (patents) and promote its extension to the provinces.
• Reformulate the internal security system.
• Promote coordination and cooperation between federal and provincial security forces to dismantle complex crime networks.
• Invest in technology for all security forces.
• Present projects aimed at modifying procedural laws that hinder police action and grant excessive concessions to criminals.
• Depoliticization and professionalization of the police forces, prevent the succession of high police hierarchical positions with other government agencies or public entities.
• On firearms possession: deregulation of the legal market and protect the legitimate and responsible use of firearms by citizens.
• Finally, it establishes a reform of the Ministry of the Interior to combat illegal immigration and crimes perpetrated by foreigners. In addition, it seeks to combat the depredation of the seas by other nations.
• Prohibit the entry into the country of foreigners with criminal records.
• In internal security, to articulate national and provincial laws related to the matter and to promote coordinated interjurisdictional actions.
• Establish procedures to achieve a greater control of the maritime spaces under national jurisdiction and achieve a strict protection of our fishing resources through the Naval Prefecture in its capacity as national maritime authority.
• Incorporate mobile sensors, vehicles, drones, satellites and all necessary equipment for border control and achieve the collection of information to prevent complex crimes and monitor borders remotely.
• Optimize the operation of border crossings.
• Immediate deportation of foreigners who commit crimes in the country.
• Rethink national defense policy to coordinate with foreign policy, especially in our submarine platform, demanding a restructuring of the armed forces that demands a redefinition of their mission and territorial deployment.
• Promote a National Security doctrine and its strategies.

HEALTH, ABORTION, AND EUTHANASIA

In another section, the platform proposes a profound reform of the health system, with a strong impulse of the private sector, especially for medical care, promoting the tariffing of benefits so that investment in the area rises and doctors finally earn what they deserve.

In addition, it establishes protections for children from conception, rejecting abortion and euthanasia; and proposes to charge medical consultation fees to foreigners from countries that charge health services to Argentines.

• Decentralizing hospital referrals, charging fees for all health services, and self-managing the health service in shared work with private health care.
• To audit the collection of PAMI and proceed to re-categorize the professionals.
• To protect children from conception and the elderly until their natural death.
• To modify the Mental Health Law.
• Train health care providers in the control of healthy children (growth and development) to detect child abuse.
• To develop and promote prevention, attention, control, and follow-up programs of disabled patients according to pathology.
• Analyze the structure of the Ministry of Health to detect double assignments or duplicated tasks to reduce public spending.
• Incorporation of medical centers specialized in congenital pathologies that private investments will support.
• Creation of universal health insurance that covers costs, preventive care, and emergency procedures proportional to the service recipient’s ability to pay.
• Covering positions in the health area by open curricular merit at all levels and whose positions will be competitive every five years.
• Private companies will promote the donation of supplies to level 2.
• Promote laws that allow both professionals and patients to agree on paying fees.
• Foreign residents who demonstrate economic availability should cover their expenses.
• To demand that foreign tourists enter the Argentinean territory and that in their territory, they require Argentineans to have health insurance with coverage of up to USS 30,000 – reciprocity.
• Control the registration, degrees, and other documentation of foreigners who want to practice medicine in Argentine territory, prioritizing Argentine labor.

EDUCATION AND FIGHT AGAINST GENDER IDEOLOGY

In line with Milei’s public proposals, his platform promotes the voucher or educational check, which converts fixed costs into variable costs for public education, granting checks to less wealthy families to pay for their children’s education in private schools.

This system has been extremely successful in the U.S. states where it is applied, as well as in countries such as Sweden, Switzerland and Australia.

In addition, it reforms the Ministry of Education, and makes the compulsory curriculum more flexible, with special emphasis on removing the compulsory nature of ESI and gender ideology courses.

In general, it is proposed to depoliticize education in the country.

• Voucher system (educational check).
• Decentralize education by giving the budget to parents, instead of giving it to the Ministry, financing demand and not supply.
• Generate competition between educational institutions from the curricular point of view at all levels of education, incorporating more hours of subjects such as mathematics, language, science and computer science, or by orientations.
• Curricular transformation that promotes a pedagogical approach based on skills, which goes beyond the simple transmission of knowledge.
• Creation of a teaching career at the university level.
• Creation of a career for managers and supervisors.
• Elimination of the compulsory nature of ESI at all levels of education.
• Modification of the teaching statute to allow the elimination of unjustified leaves of absence and the introduction of dismissal.
• Modification of curricular design applied to the necessary interventions according to the professionals the country needs (engineers, computer scientists, etc.).

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