As in the Luis García Berlanga film Los jueves, milagro (1957), the Government of Pedro Sánchez performs authentic wonders on Tuesdays, although lately it has been extended to Thursdays, Fridays or any other day of the week.
Every time the Council of Ministers meets, a rabbit is pulled out of the top hat. The spokeswoman Isabel Rodríguez solemnly announces a new subsidy, aid or royalty to favor young people, peasants, grandparents, tenants or whoever she is. The important thing is to keep the parish happy before the 28-M elections.
It is not strange, therefore, that Sánchez has increased the public debt in a single month almost as much as the excess collection achieved in all of 2022. The figures sing. Last year the Treasury collected 34,000 million more than expected thanks to inflation and the rise in taxes in the cold. In the month of February, the public debt increased by 30,208 million to reach 1,530 trillion euros (with b for a lot). This trend of increasing spending has been accelerating as the municipal elections approached the electoral date.
A kind of vote buying with public money, which has always been done, although never with such intensity. Every day the State debt grows at a rate of 200 million, which means that every minute the public sector spends 145,000 euros that one day our children or grandchildren will have to pay.
The thing is not to be taken as a joke, although it does not seem to worry the first vice president Nadia Calviño too much. An irresponsibility that the government of Rodríguez Zapatero already committed and that put Spain on the verge of bankruptcy when the great recession of 2009 occurred.
The governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, has had no choice but to stand up in his annual report. As he argues, the Spanish economy will continue to grow at rates close to 2% in the next three years. But he warns that the high public indebtedness, which is accompanied by a considerable structural public deficit, could endanger it: "This situation constitutes an important source of vulnerability for our economy, particularly in a context of tightening of monetary policy."
In other words, the governor warns that interest rates are going to continue to rise and that the risk premium is going to become the sword of Damocles that it was in the previous financial crisis.
He has also called Sánchez's attention, warning him that other miracles such as the rise in pensions in line with inflation, or the housing law in which rents are limited, are a drag on cleaning up our public accounts. That is to say, that the populist policy that is being carried out from the economic point of view is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow.
But it is not only the governor of the Bank of Spain. Also the president of Airef, Cristina Herrero, has raised her voice to denounce the irresponsibility of drawing on the checkbook. Solitaire cheating is being played and structural debt reduction should begin immediately. In other words, reduce debt by 6,000 million euros per year. Airef believes that, if no measures are taken, the deficit will stagnate at 3% from 2024 and that the debt will have a growing inertia. Spending as if there were no tomorrow is grossly irresponsible, as has already been demonstrated with the Zapatero government.
