The Government will present the Bases 2 law and a new version of the Hojarasca Law in December.

The ruling party will seek the legislative change that will take place on December 9 to advance a package of bills, confident that it will have a larger bloc, although it will lose key allies such as about twenty members from the PRO party and a dozen from the UCR party.

The announcement was made by the Secretaries of Deregulation, Alejandro Cacace, and of State Transformation and Public Service, Maximiliano Matías Fariña , at a new meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee.

Prior to the officials' presentations, opposition deputies rejected the government's decision to enact and suspend the implementation of the Garrahan and Universities laws, as they did with the Disability Law, and warned that they will seek to add these items to the 2026 budget.

During the meeting, chaired by its president, Bertie Benegas Lynch (LLA), he announced that the Secretary of Labor, Julio Cordero, will attend tomorrow, and the Secretary of Education, Carlos Torrendell, will attend next Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.

The Secretary of Education's presence is generating great expectations, given that the government suspended the teacher financing law and enacted and suspended the law increasing university funding.

Cacace announced that on December 15th they will send a package of projects that includes the Base 2 law, the Hojarasca 2 law , the first version of which the ruling party never put up for discussion in the respective committees, and another that includes the points of the May Council.

The former congressman emphasized that " we will submit these projects on December 15th with the idea of ​​working on them together. We invite all the blocs to participate ."

He explained that "the Bases Law 2 is a compilation of things that were left out, such as the Jury Trial Law" and the points considered at the May Council meeting. "The Chamber of Deputies was a pillar of these reforms," ​​he added, "and the Bases Law was a positive exercise in democratic dialogue."

Alejandro Cacace announced the submission of the Bases 2 law

Deputies

He noted that there is " prejudice toward deregulation, and deregulation is about eliminating privileges and barriers to access that our markets have . Argentina has had a corporate-led approach to power for decades."

" The State became an instrument for economic concentration in favor of a few companies, which deprived free competition ," he added. He emphasized that "we have enabled those who couldn't participate in the market to now be able to, whether they are SMEs or companies that want to offer a product with better quality and price."

He said another set of laws is being worked on that would incorporate the points of the May Council, including "the inviolability of private property; non-negotiable fiscal balance; the reduction of public spending to 25% of GDP; early childhood, primary, and modern secondary education; tax reform; and the modification of revenue sharing."

Also on "the exploitation of natural resources; modern labor reform; pension reform; opening of international trade. These are points that were signed by 18 governors and are being discussed within the May Council."

For his part, Fariña noted that "when we came to power, there were two fundamental pillars: a fiscal surplus and deregulation." "In 30 years, the Argentine state has grown; for us, that's the adjustment. Every peso I take from consumers and businesses leads us to a country without job creation or investment ," he asserted.

He added that "achieving a fiscal surplus in the first month of government had the flip side of a transformation of the state and a review of the size of the national government." "We also reviewed the entire national structure at the first and second levels, reducing it by 20%, which meant a saving of 18 billion. We also eliminated 400 state departments."

"A special chapter concerns decentralized and deconcentrated agencies: in the 1980s, there were around 40 agencies; in 2023, we received 111. It was a place for distributing political positions ," he added.

The Budget and Finance Committee of the Lower House met again

Deputies

He emphasized that "in a year and a half, we reduced public employment by 54,000 people." He added: "We also eliminated hereditary privileges and those of public companies, modified the public works contracting system, and eliminated more than 25 trust funds."

From the opposition, union leader Sergio Palazzo said, "You have a boss who seems to really like decrees. It seems to be a constant. You invited dialogue. Here in Parliament, there has been dialogue. More than two-thirds of us have said something, and you veto it . I don't know what dialogue you're looking for. Dialogue on the terms you want, and if not, there's no dialogue."

Minutes earlier, the Kirchnerist deputy had blamed Sturzenegger for having "stealed" the opinion on the first version of the Bases Law, whose approval failed in the chamber.

"I would ask that now that Sturzenegger has the rank of minister , they not steal the opinion as they did with the Bases Law 1 , when they took it to an apartment in Recoleta and (national representative Oscar) Agost Carreño reported that the one who corrected it was Sturzenegger," he recalled.

Prior to the officials' presentations, there was a discussion among the deputies regarding the participation of legislators from the dialogue blocs and from Democracy Forever in the meeting held yesterday at the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, with the Secretary of Finance, Carlos Guberman , and the Deputy Chief of Staff, José Rolandi .

The head of the UxP bloc, Germán Martínez , stated that it was "a serious political error at this time to facilitate parallel meetings with the budget committee at a time when we want to empower the Budget Committee."

The Budget and Finance Committee of the Lower House met again

Deputies

Representatives from the Federal Encounter party, Nicolás Massot , and the Democracy Forever party, Danya Tavela , defended their participation in the meeting and said they will continue to participate in meetings to seek agreements on the budget.

In this regard, the Buenos Aires legislator said that "these are very frequent meetings, in all governments, including that of Together for Change, which he served on," because they are "practices of governance." He emphasized that "they are not very different from the meetings we have held to arrive at the joint opinions that are incorporated into the Budget."