It is understood that there is a long way between saying and doing, for something there is the old saying “something else is with guitar”.
For music lovers, we know that it is different to know some songs or play a few simple chords, than to play the guitar well. When John Lennon discovered Paul McCartney, what surprised the late composer most was that the former Beatle knew how to tune the guitar. Something that now sounds so basic, was the aspect that at the end of the 50’s was really valued, which assured Lennon that he was in front of a great musician.
At the end of a year of government, it was known that this new generation, which grew up as student leaders and accustomed to playing chords related to mobilization and social justice, was going to take a little longer to learn to play the guitar of being a government and interpret its ambitious concert full of promises. This is how Sebastián Piñera’s former Minister Segpres, Juan José Ossa, made him feel when his successor, Giorgio Jackson, gave him a guitar before the change of command.
Getting the votes to carry out their respective tax reforms, both in the second governments of Bachelet and Piñera, was considered the first great audition that both governments showed to achieve agreements. Both approved and achieved knowing how to play the guitar to generate agreements to obtain the necessary votes, including the oppositions.
The government program of Sebastián Piñera politically ended, with the social outbreak at the end of 2019 and when the pandemic was added, the executive had to assume a “realism with renunciation”. Here we are seeing a similar situation, leaving 3 years of government and with the economic tails of inflation due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The promise of playing the chords of dignity songs, reducing inequality, pension and health reform, distantly sound on an out-of-tune guitar that is still not even ready to play.
Faced with the rejection of the tax reform, the generation that is in government, it was easy for them to want to play the songs they used when they were leaders and opposition. The song is called… “The fault lies with the right,” along with other great successes such as “this was to protect the big tax evading businessmen,” ending with “Piñera appears right now to prevent Chile from moving forward.” Ultra listened songs that during the social outbreak and the pandemic were effective and most hummed, but at this point the song is already trite and out of tune.
La Moneda has remained entangled in the discursive song derived from the social explosion, from the pardons. Manuel Rodriguez would surely wriggle in his grave, if he knew that the young people they pardoned, inspired by the guerrilla and who during the spell of the social outbreak were branded and honored by the honorable, in the former congress as the “fighters of the people”, were finally simple petty criminals.
The inability of the executive to get out of these issues and be able to compose his own songs, shows that he urgently needs to tune the guitar first to find other financing mechanisms so that his government program or part of it, can be played in the concert that was promised to all Chileans. There are other ways to approach it other than through a tax reform, considering that the government accumulated a surplus during 2022, of 1.1% of GDP, thanks to the fact that fiscal spending contracted by 23.1% and the injection of liquidity that copper and lithium are giving to the State, so it becomes relevant to continue the exploitation of the latter mineral in which, due to lack of political agreement, We have been falling behind. Another way to add this necessary financing is to reduce some poorly evaluated programs, considering that currently 4.5% of GDP is allocated to government programs with poor evaluations.
Gabriel Boric will have to improvise and look for alternative songs to fulfill part of the government program. The President urgently needs to find, his Paul McCartney who can once and for all, articulate and tune that guitar considering that there are 3 years left in which the government must learn to play it for all Chileans.
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The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
