“Historic feat”: Milei hails Argentina’s first quarterly budget surplus since 2008 | Abroad

A “historic feat”, declared the not entirely uncontroversial president. The populist ultra-liberal Millei won last year’s elections with a program of drastic cuts in the Argentine system. He took the oath in December.

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The rare surplus comes because Buenos Aires has cut three-quarters of the money flows to the provincial government and the suspension of almost 90 percent of public works, according to the politician who campaigned with a chainsaw last year to illustrate his plans. Furthermore, the government was able to contain costs by allowing annual inflation of almost 300 percent to erode public spending on wages and pensions.

If the state does not spend more than it collects and does not rely on issues (of money), there is no inflation. That’s not magic

Javier Milei

“If the state does not spend more than it collects and does not rely on issues (of money), there is no inflation. That’s not magic,” the president said. In recent months, he devalued the peso by more than 50 percent, halved the number of ministries, scrapped hundreds of pricing mechanisms and started cutting energy and transport subsidies.