The BE coordinator considered this Friday “inexplicable government policy” in the face of record figures for tax revenue and benefits of large companies, and defended an increase in wages and pensions instead of “alms”.
“The government’s policy is inexplicable [ao] Say you can’t do more than what you’re doing”criticized the leader of the Bloco de Esquerda (BE), in statements to journalists in Évora.
After a meeting with the administration of the Hospital do Espírito Santo de Évora (HESE), the leader of the bloc was consulted on the latest inflation and tax revenue figures raised by the State and stressed: “Don’t tell us there is no money.”
We look at the tax collection that was collected, we look at the profits of large companies and we know that there is money, yes, there is no desire to balance the country”, he refuted.
And, according to Catarina Martins, “this is the moment to update salaries and pensions, yes, so that people can live with dignity”, and it is the moment to “control prices and combat excessive profits that are made at the expense of who are living with more and more difficulty”.
“The Portuguese people do not need alms, they need dignified responses, salary, pension, price control,” he said.
The BE coordinator explained that “inflation has already exceeded 10%”, that “there has never been a tax collection like this and that public accounts have never had the margin they have today”.
We also know, in recent days, that there have never been profits like now and we have large companies in the energy sector, large distribution, banking presenting extraordinary profits every month”, he added.
Therefore, “at a time when public accounts have tax revenues like never before, when large companies have profits like never before, but prices are also rising like never before, only wages and pensions do not rise and people live absolutely tied to throat, unable to make ends meet”, he criticized.
For Catarina Martins, “surely that there is scope to lower taxes, namely VAT on essential goods such as electricity and gas” and also “there is all the room to raise wages and impose wage increases,” he insisted.
“And measures are also needed on what is the great problem of inflation, which comes from before, which is housing. We see interest rates rise, the ECB announced a new rate hike, and we do not see any concrete measures that force banks to renegotiate housing contracts, nor any measures that lower house prices, ”he defended.
Measures that are necessary because, in Portugal, “those who have a house at the moment are anxious to keep it and those who do not have it [a] can get by with prices always rising,” he reinforced, complaining that the government “can certainly do more.”
BE Coordinator, Catarina Martins, He criticized this Friday that the holders of “golden visas”, a measure that he considers “a cancer of the national economy”, receive the 125 euros from the Governmentand people with “zero income” do not have access to supports.
What this shows is that this extraordinary support of 125 euros “is a poorly designed measure”, the leader of the Bloco de Esquerda (BE) told reporters after a meeting with the administration of the Hospital do Espírito Santo de Évora (HESE). .
Catarina Martins asked how it is possible that the holders of “golden visas” are receiving the extraordinary support of 125 euros, “when so many people who have no income do not receive the 125 euros.”
In Évora, the coordinator of the BE reports on the advanced news this sixth-weekly weekly Express that holders of “vistos gold” are to receive the extraordinary support of 125 euros raised by the Government to help families to face the effects of raising the cost of living.
The blockade leader gave the example of a mother who, in 2021, as “schools were still closed”, ended up “without a solution for her family” and lost her job.
“And he ends up without even having access to unemployment and was left without any social benefits”, so now “he has zero income, he is at home and he does not receive the 125 euros”, he said, reporting that he receives “a huge number of letters from people desperate women who have no income, often women who care for children or parents”.
And that “they have no income and do not charge the 125 euros and there are “golden visas” charging the 125 euros,” he emphasized.
For Catarina Martins, the “golden visas” are “a policy that only serves corruption, money laundering and real estate speculation.”
And I think that one of the most shocking things is realizing that the government will probably end the 125 euros faster for the population that needs it, that it will end the “golden visas”, which are a cancer of our economy and our democracy,” he argued.
According to the newspaper Expresso, the support was granted by Social Security to a group of foreign citizens holding “golden visas” with high capital income, but whose declared labor income is little or none.
In a clarification sent to the newspaper, the Ministries of Finance and Labor, Solidarity and Social Security indicate that the “attribution of extraordinary support follows the criteria defined in the legal diplomas”, which “in general terms, attend to the level of income of taxpayers residents in Portugal declared before the AT and the ISS [Instituto da Segurança Social]as well as the ownership of certain social benefits (unemployment subsidy or social integration income)”.
The Government also indicates that “it is not a criterion for the purposes of attributing extraordinary aid, either to reduce or expand the universe of beneficiaries, any other circumstances that exceed the general criteria listed, such as the different modalities of residence authorization in the nationality of the territory of the supported citizens”.
Source: Observadora
