Costa says opposition wants to ‘scare the Portuguese’ with IUC increase

The Prime Minister said this Monday, at the start of the debate on the draft state budget for 2024, that the opposition “wants to scare the Portuguese” with all the “false” accusations it has made against the government. We will talk about criticism and references made in recent days in relation to the Unified Turnover Tax (UST).

António Costa stressed that, contrary to the statements of right-wing parties last year, the executive branch did not cut pensions by a billion euros.

“This hypothesis has never been considered. A year later, the pensioners learned the truth. And again, like last year, the opposition wants to scare the Portuguese. This time by announcing a sky-high increase in IUC,” he said.

The Prime Minister assured that “every citizen who pays the IUC will be able to confirm that they will pay a maximum of an additional 25 euros during 2024.”

Costa accused the opposition of wanting to reduce the budget issue to an IUC issue because it did not want to “discuss wage and pension increases, cuts to the IRS, increases in social benefits, increased public investment and good fiscal and economic results.”

During his speech, the leader of the Executive recalled how the SDP presented a proposal in August to reduce the IRS for 2024 and quickly forgot about it, “like young people about summer loves,” burying it in the sand.

“After the NDP/SDP made it a priority to immediately cut the IRC in the election campaign – and delayed possible cuts to the IRS until 2025 or 2026 if conditions allowed – in mid-summer they remembered that: after all, they wanted to overthrow the IRS, the NDP/SDP took this proposal as summer loves do: they bury themselves in the sand,” said the leader of the executive branch, receiving applause from the PS bench.

The Prime Minister concluded his speech by highlighting all the goals that the government has been able to achieve, such as increasing wages and pensions, as well as reducing taxes and social debt.

Continuing to address the party benches to the right of the PS, António Costa said: “No matter how much they make it up, no matter how much they want to disagree, the truth is that this is another budget that increases the incomes of workers, young people, pensioners, all Portuguese families.”

Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, a PSD deputy, turned to António Costa and promised to dispel all the arguments of the prime minister. “This is a strategy [PS] this is a double E: impoverishment and emigration,” he emphasized.

Eurico Brillante Díaz accuses Passos Coelho of betting on “impoverishment and emigration”

The parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic Party said this Monday that the government of António Costa is following a strategy that has brought “good results without cuts” and focused criticism on former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, accusing him of betting on “ impoverishment and emigration.”

At the end of his question to the Prime Minister on the first day of the discussion of most of the proposals for the state budget for 2024 in the Assembly of the Republic, Eurico Brillante Díaz recalled that Passos Coelho, when he was no longer Prime Minister, expressed himself “ready to vote for the PS, PKP or Block de Esquerda if the strategy works.”

“I have the impression that the PS is on the verge of winning a new voter, I really think that we will have a new voter, because if MP Passos Coelho keeps his word, the Portuguese left will have a new voter,” he added, noting , that the former prime minister was “very much applauded” at the time by the current PSD president, Luis Montenegro.

Mariana Mortagua: “When social networks don’t have a cure, it won’t be a “sovereign wealth fund” that can solve the problem

The BE co-ordinator said that “when there is no cure for social national security”, it would not be a “sovereign wealth fund” that would solve the problem, prompting the Prime Minister to ensure that the existing surplus “does not come at the expense of the SNA”.

“Can you reach an agreement with health workers that respects their working hours and their ability to balance work with their personal and family lives, or will you insist that the surplus cannot be spent on saving the NHS,” asked Mariana Mortagua at Antonio Costa’s. first day of discussion of the state budget for 2024 (OE2024).

The BE coordinator said that “when the SNS does not have a cure,” it will not be “the sovereign wealth fund that can save this huge democratic problem that Portugal will be left with.”