PS states that PSD cannot recognize progress in the country and has no proposals

This Sunday, the PS accused the SDP of being “unable to recognize the many successes the country has made over the past eight years” and of not having “any concrete proposal, especially in the area of ​​housing.”

In response to a speech by the leader of the Social Democrats, Luis Montenegro, this Sunday at the SDP Summer University, in which he pointed out arrogance towards the socialist government for refusing his party’s proposals, PS deputy general secretary João Torres told reporters that the largest opposition party ” lives clinging to gossip” and out of touch with reality.

“Today’s speech by the leader of the SDP [este domingo] fails to recognize, as is usually the case with the largest opposition party, the many successes the country has made over the past eight years, and even, even, much of the progress the country has made in the current legislature, and therefore since the last legislative elections,” Joao Torres said.

The Socialist leader listed the unemployment rate, the dynamics of wages and pensions, school books and free kindergartens, and also responded to the criticism of the largest opposition party on housing and taxation, which the PS refuses to discuss “as if a duel”.

“The SDP, since the so-called “Christas Law”, approved by the Assembly of the Republic with right-wing votes, understands that the market is able to solve all the problems in the housing sector and the housing market by itself, and what you see over the past few years is that this is not true,” he said.

PS Deputy Secretary General said that since the government came to power in late 2015, it has developed a “new housing and government intervention strategy” which he said includes a new basic law for the sector and a policy covering 270 local strategies in partnership with municipalities, which are being implemented and will cover more than one hundred thousand households.

After a presidential veto on the executive’s “More Housing” package and widespread criticism from the opposition and industry associations, Torres confirmed that the government’s strategy in this area was “in full swing” and in Belém the decree “failed” the following year. and “deserves confirmation” in the Assembly of the Republic.

“This is done without any arrogance on the part of the Socialist Party,” he commented, adding that “the only solution for the SDP is to simply start from scratch all the accumulated work.”

On fiscal policy, the Socialist leader also dismissed Montenegrin accusations against the prime minister and the Socialist Party of “even more punishment for the middle class” if they “failed” the Social Democrats’ proposals to cut the IRS, expecting António Costa to be “a skill in this denial.

The leader of the Social Democrats returned this Sunday to the theme that marked the party’s Festa do Pontal in mid-August, in which he presented five proposals at the IRS level, including a cut later this year in IRS rates at all levels, with the exception of the last one. to be funded by excess tax revenue.

The PS refuses to engage in this “childish discussion, as if in practice it were almost a duel”, and also does not accept “moral lessons on taxation from the PSD”, said João Torres.

The government will “continue to lower the IRS without prejudice to other important measures to improve household incomes” and promote a “selective reduction” of the IRC, also recalling the measures included in IVA Zero to combat inflation, he added.

According to the Deputy Secretary General of the PS, “The Portuguese are paying €2 billion less to the IRS than they would have paid under the rules in place at the end of 2015”, in addition to removing the surcharge on this tax and reconfiguring the levels with a reduction of two percentage points. point in one of them, as well as the strengthening of the young IRS.

The PSD president said this Sunday that the party is working to “win the next European elections” and defended the need to “wake up Portugal and realize the incompetence” of António Costa’s leadership.

“Was those eight years worth it? What was the evolution of Portugal? (…) We had two years of a pandemic followed by two years of pandemonium,” he said.

Montenegro recalled 13 dismissals in the government and imagined what the media would say if he himself had only three dismissals towards the SDP.

“It is necessary to wake up Portugal and realize the lack of leadership competence of Dr. António Costa as prime minister. We show that we are able to lead the government with greater competence and greater results than the PS,” he said.