The mortgages that Pedro Sánchez will leave us

The president behaves like an insolvent man trying to pay off his debts with other loans.

Like an insolvent person trying to pay off their debts with more loans, the Prime Minister is signing more mortgages he doesn't intend to pay, which all Spaniards will have to face . This is what he has been doing since coming to power in 2018, boosting public spending and debt to historic highs as a way to win support, bend people's wills, and secure the political credibility he wasn't getting at the polls. In other words, he is burdening current and future taxpayers with the bills for his profligate management .

The culmination of this approach is the unique funding for the Catalan government. Sánchez has pledged to deliver a larger percentage of the resources contributed by all Spaniards to the political leaders of one of the country's most prosperous regions , in an agreement negotiated behind the backs of the citizens and their legitimate representatives that will condition the state's future capacity to maintain quality public services throughout the country. This is a mortgage signed with very unfavorable conditions for all Spaniards (including Catalans, of course), since if a future government were to decide not to honor the promises made by the Socialist leader in order to retain power for a few more months, the separatist parties would have the grounds to denounce another historical grievance and return to unilateralism.

A more difficult burden to quantify, but certainly onerous, is the discrediting of public institutions due to their instrumentalization by Sánchez's followers . This, combined with the legal uncertainty stemming from the endless regulatory changes and the Treasury's voracious tax collection efforts, is holding back investment in our country , according to Antonio Garamendi, president of the CEOE employers' association. Regaining the confidence of investors and companies , eroded by the abuses of the current administration and the alleged corruption cases involving Sánchez's political and personal circle, will require a great deal of effort.

But, without a doubt, the largest mortgage debt Sánchez will leave for future generations is the pension debt . Since taking office, the Socialist leader has proudly boasted about restoring the purchasing power of retirement benefits, especially non-contributory ones, establishing by law that they should increase annually in line with inflation. But like almost everything Sánchez announces, there's a catch, as he has done so by increasing Social Security debt to over €100 billion through extraordinary loans from the Treasury. A crude accounting trick, since ultimately the one who will be responsible for these liabilities is the State, which has a total debt of €1.67 trillion after the current government increased it by 40% .

At this point, it's inevitable to compare Sánchez's profligacy with the actions of French Prime Minister François Bayrou, the centrist . He has just announced a severe budget cut of €43.8 billion for the next fiscal year to prevent France from suffering a debt crisis like the one that devastated Greece in 2008, even assuming it could cost him his job if the parliamentary groups supporting his government vote against a budget plan that involves freezing pensions and public salaries in the neighboring country. Bayrou justified the urgency of the French government tightening its belt because "we have become addicted to public spending." And isn't this the best summary of Pedro Sánchez's seven years at the helm of the Spanish government?