Milei's Liberalization Reforms Get A Provisional Green Light

Argentine lawmakers gave approval in principle Tuesday for a swath of liberalizing reforms eyed by President Javier Milei in a rare legislative boost for his budget-slashing agenda.

After a marathon session that lasted overnight, the lower house provisionally approved what remains of Milei's flagship "omnibus" reform bill with 142 votes against 106. There were five abstentions.

The bill includes some 230 articles -- down from the initial 600-plus rejected by lawmakers who sent the government back to the drawing board in February.

Self-declared "anarcho-capitalist Milei won elections last November vowing to take a chainsaw to public spending and reduce the budget deficit to zero.

By decree, he has cut the cabinet in half, slashed 50,000 public jobs, suspended new public works contracts and ripped away fuel and transport subsidies even as wage-earners lost a fifth of their purchasing power and annual inflation approached 290 percent.

The poverty level in Argentina has reached six in ten people, according to a recent study.

Last week, Milei hailed the economic crisis-riddled South American country's first quarterly budget surplus since 2008 and warned struggling Argentines not to "expect a way out through public spending."

In Congress, where Milei's party is a minority in both houses, things have not gone his way.

After his Omnibus bill got thrown out in February, the Senate in March rejected a so-called "mega-decree" that sought among other things to abolish rent caps and relax labor laws.

On Tuesday, lawmakers approved portions of the revamped Omnibus law.

This included include greenlighting Milei's declaration of a one-year economic emergency, approving powers allowing the president to dissolve state agencies, and the possible privatization of about a dozen public companies.

The rest of the law will now be voted on point by point, and if approved, sent on to the Senate where the president's party has an even smaller presence.