translated from Spanish: The eternal ghost of the fine print also pursues the latest presidential announcement: opposition raises doubts about the $500k bonus and the state loan

The ghost of the fine print is re-installed hard in a presidential announcement. This time, with the reinforced middle class plan that the Government pulled up its sleeve in the prelude to the particular vote of the project authorizing the withdrawal of funds from the AFPs, which is defined tomorrow Wednesday in the Chamber of Deputies.
Once the announcements were known, the opposition drew attention to the bonus and loan announced by the Representative this afternoon in La Moneda. “On July 5, he announced a loan of 2 and a half million, and today he talks about a loan of 1 million 950 thousand, that is, we are decreasing in the offers,” warned DC Chief of Senators Ximena Rincón.
In addition, the parliament said that the most serious thing is that those 500 thousand pesos advertised as a bonus “is still less than many families in our country need.” “Mr. President, we will consider your proposals, but the withdrawal of the proposed 10% that we raised in March is in force and very strong. Because that’s what men and women in our country demand that they don’t get the help you’re proposing to the middle class,” he concluded.
According to today’s announcement, the State will additionally grant a solidarity loan that will offset up to 70% of the fall in income and be awarded in 3 monthly installments, with a maximum of 650 thousand pesos per installment and a maximum loan amount of $1 million 950 thousand pesos. Originally the plan presented on July 5, the Covid Credits program for the Middle Class envisaged delivering credits of up to $2,600,000, over a 4-month period.
Between the meetings of last week, during the general debate on the reform of pension funds in the Chamber of Deputies, the Government had offered to the parliamentarians of Chile We go that 25% of the requested amount will be a subsidy ($650,000) and the remaining 75% a loan ($1,950,000).
Numbers don’t fit. “The bonus is less than what the Government proposed a week ago when it wanted to prevent the overall approval of the reform authorizing the withdrawal of pension funds,” recalled the helmsman of the Socialist Party Alvaro Elizalde.
The senator added that “we would have liked President Piñera to have spoken to the country, to the families who were having a hard time, but on the contrary he merely spoke his coalition. Or, worse, the few Members whose votes intend to turn the pension funds off the leg,” alluding to the 13 official votes who generally approved the project and are now in doubt for tomorrow’s key vote.
DC helmsman Fuad Chahin, meanwhile, focused on another point of potential “small letter”: “I believe that President Sebastian Piñera wasted a great opportunity. It is a project full of requirements, full of small print, full of exclusions, where there are those who earn less than 500 thousand pesos, those who cannot prove a significant drop in their income, such as self-employed and informal.”
In the same vein, the deputy of Social Convergence, Gabriel Boric, argued that the “Government is late and with small print in its ads supporting the middle class”, while the head of the pedR’s seat, Raúl Soto, also stated that “the draft withdrawal of planned funds is no return, no return, no re-negotiable or interchangeable by any other measure or any other proposal.”
Chile Vamos lines up
On the right, meanwhile, Chile Vamos was aligned with the Government, although at least two of the Deputies who voted in general in favour of the reform, decided that they will hold their vote tomorrow when it is the definition in particular in the Lower House Chamber, MPs Andrés Celis and Leonidas Romero.
RN President Mario Desbordes was emphatic: “I’ve always said that withdrawing pension funds is the last option, and only if there’s nothing better, and I think the proposal is. Despite all the attacks, we achieved very good measures. Now to legislate urgently.”
In the opinion of helmsman RN, “the middle class is having a great time, that’s why the package of measures announced by the President is so valued. You’d always like more, but I think the ads are blunt.”
Desbordes’ stance is shared by two of his detractors, Senator Andrés Allamand and Deputy Diego Schalper. For the former presidential candidate, the average bonus of the government’s $500,000, is “100 thousand pesos more than the 10% withdrawal of AFPs ($400 thousand) promises, but that does not insure Chileans or compromise their retirements.”
As Schalper, who noted in the room that “the 10% withdrawal is telling the middle class to scratch with their own fingernails,” he said the bonus is blunt.” “The crisis cannot be charged to workers’ savings and pensions for pensions. It is the State that can/must contribute,” he said.
In his turn, Senator RN Rodrigo Galilea noted that this is meeting a very large demand and helping many middle-sector people who needed it” and expressed confidence that “opposition and government parliamentarians will come to support these measures and reject others that, however well they sound, are bad public policies, damage pensions and – in many cases – would help sectors that do not need it.”
 Freedom of choice
In the opposition they also put on the table the choice of freedom to choose. For DR Senator Juan Ignacio Latorre “it is advisable to “let people choose what is best for them”, while PPD MP Carolina Marzán, confirmed that “it is the people who must decide whether to withdraw 10% of THE AFPs or access the benefits of the government”
“The withdrawal of 10% of AFP is a personal option, and perfectly compatible with government announcements that unfortunately leave informal workers out. That they are the ones who have had the most trouble accessing the benefits that have already been delivered,” she said.
In the same vein, the seat of DCs DC reiterated its vote in favour of pension withdrawal, and through its deputy head of banker Gabriel Silber referred that “we regret that President Piñera made the debate of the draft withdrawal of some of the resources saved in the AFPs by the workers, a real auction for which he bids or proposes more, making last-minute offers.”
For his part, former House President Ivan Flores noted that “if the announced and recontra aid announced we would not be at this time; the Government has failed to support the middle class; continue to indebted to families was never the way. The political hecatombe that generated this project is because it is clear that the problem that some have is that they are terrified of changing the model towards one of greater social justice; terror to lose the businesses that hold many Chileans captive and imprisoned.”
For the radical helmsman Carlos Maldonado, Piñera’s announcement represents a “desperate defense of AFPs. Now that the government is seen against the wall, it offers bonds and more loans (not for everyone, you have to prove significant decline in income) and calls for unity and agreements, when you never really wanted to listen.”
Meanwhile, the president of Social Convergence, Gael Yeomans, is an “excessively focused measure, because here the vast majority of families are the ones who need help and not restricted groups of the population, in case that is not yet clear to the Executive. That’s why from the outset, we proposed an emergency basic income covering 80% of the population without distinctions.”
One of the authors of the project that allows the withdrawal of pension funds, regionalist MEP Alejandra Sepúlveda, said that “we hope that the President will let families choose: either this bonus will withdraw 10% of their AFPs. Chileans are not injunctions and can decide which option to take. We ask that the President not put pressure on his Members and allow families to choose.”

Original source in Spanish

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