The state of the nation
On the 12th, our illustrious and never well-considered President of the Government staged yet another act in his unbridled race towards populism, marketing and unproductiveness. It had been since 2015 that, for various reasons beyond his control and not so much, this type of debate had not taken place, which, in addition to being more than necessary, if done properly, should help Spaniards to really know how we are doing, where we are going and what awaits us in the medium and short term.
That is what was supposed to happen on this occasion; especially after so many years of waiting and due to the blackness of the sky because of the large and compact storm clouds that are approaching from all sides with no possibility of escape from such a storm; but a large majority of us feared or sensed that this was not going to be the case.
Sánchez, as a good and more than proven escapist, tried to avoid telling us what situation we are in and what really awaits us, except for a few small brushstrokes, without clarifying or going into the slightest detail, in which he put it in black and white - so that one day he could not be blamed for the same mistake as his master Zapatero - that the economic situation is already serious, that it is going to get worse and that it is going to get worse, that it is going to get worse and that, therefore, everyone, except coincidentally the macro and super bulky government, its derived structure and its propaganda machine, will have to slim down to try to reduce expenses and economise on efforts that, for everyone except politicians, are superfluous and therefore we can easily do without them.
The debt, the huge deficit, the real unemployment not camouflaged, the CPI and the consequent inflation have reached dizzying heights and, in order to stick to the script, it was recently announced that Sánchez, the saviour of crisis situations, as justification for his 'magnificent Doctorate in Economics', was going to show us his masterly formula with which to save Spain from all its ills and return to normality; while the rest of the countries around us and beyond the seas will continue to sink into the murky and deep lakes of economic despair and unproductivity. A fallacious and invented situation which, in order to make it more plausible, he would take it upon himself to produce graphs to support his theory, even if they were based on false data and he did not cite their authorship, date or degree of reliability.
He began by crying in his usual way, showing the loneliness and incomprehension that surrounds him in his governmental tasks, the fierce internal struggle within the government and the 'sorcerer's' recipes that rain down on him from the opposing bench, which, in his opinion, only serve to confuse and confound the public; while he set himself up as the good doctor who knows and understands his job well and who always applies his appropriate and measured way of acting.
After his usual fireworks, trying to obfuscate the staff and cast the opposition as evil and perverse who do not want to help him or obey his proposals as archaic, unproductive and even inane or harmful to tackle so much and so much evil, he arrived at the moment of the 'more difficult yet'. Preceded by drumbeats and hoping to be the object of a surprise, which would initially prevent him from assessing the substance, the reality and the depth of his proposals, he threw all the fire of his artillery at us.
An artillery that turned out to be a firework of a humble Valencian neighbourhood in times of hardship and budget cuts, disguised with a few firecrackers interspersed to make it sound new and original.
We all expected and knew for sure that their initiatives would not be paid for by a slimming down of their macro governmental, structural and publicity apparatus, which houses hundreds of useless, inept and pampered characters, although they are more than well paid, hidden in ministries, consultancies and official bodies, while Spain is bleeding to death on all four sides, and when autumn arrives we will see what happens to the hundreds or thousands of companies that cannot afford to pay their ICO loans, which were so happily and freely lent during the pandemic and which now meet the payment deadlines and are beginning to expire irremissibly and without the possibility of a new postponement to relieve them of the ordeal and allow them to recover somewhat, if they can do so at all.
No, their initiatives, as was to be expected, this time should please their coalition partners to keep them united for the rest of the legislature and, for this reason, they came with three fundamental things: new indiscriminate taxes without real data to evaluate energy companies and banks (a surprise or novelty, the latter costing them more than 6. 6 billion euros at the very moment of its announcement); taxes, which we can be sure that in the end it will be the ordinary Spaniards who, as always, will have to pay, more or less underhandedly, in the form of higher fees and commissions that will begin to operate tomorrow. On the other hand, they are focused on handouts that, by their nature and scope, do not favour society as a whole and on dusting off old plans (from the time of Gallardón, the PP's mayor of Madrid), in which, in the early nineties, I myself played a role of some importance, as a young commander, who was commissioned to accommodate and transfer most of the units located there to other barracks.
A plan that all the presidents of democracy, except Rajoy, have profusely wielded as a succulent sugar cane and that has never, not even in times of economic prosperity, turned into anything real or formal.
In short, he has once again sold us a broken product, not based on real calculations and with a term of more than two years, with which he intends to get enough money to give free (for three months) tickets on Cercanías and regional trains in state means and to increase by one hundred euros the amount of grants for young people, who already have them, but with the rise in the cost of living they can't even afford to eat a decent meal every day.
It is more than clear that he is winking at Madrid in order to recover a lost space; but even so, it is no more than a fallacious attempt, because putting the dusty and cobwebbed Plan Campamento back on the table today, much more unviable in times of crisis when, in addition to the huge increases in labour and construction materials, he is facing a similar and larger initiative in the northern part (Chamartín) of the same city.
And I wonder if Sánchez really believes that, with these few, selective, incomplete and very localised measures, which leave more than eighty percent of the national population without even receiving a cent, the problems mentioned are going to solve and the even worse issues that we are all, inevitably, going to face.
Of course not; because if he is convinced otherwise, it would be to strip him of his doctorate in economics, which he should never have held, and to send him to the galleys for many years for prevaricating, abusing his power and repeatedly deceiving a people who are having a very hard time.
But if his attitude is and was shameful, even more reprehensible is that of his colleagues in Parliament who applauded him with their ears, while and after he announced and shelled out some infamous measures, which leave out a vast majority of Spaniards; which, given the seriousness of the situation we are facing, avoid facing the real problems head on; that are temporary and useless because they are unproductive and that, without any doubt, will increase energy costs and bank charges for all Spaniards, without mercy or pity; while, on the other hand, nothing will be obtained in return, nor will any or all of the fat and waste that after so many years of toasting with champagne and looking the other way, we have too much of and that really weighs on us, be reduced.