BUENOS AIRES, March 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) —\u00a0President Mauricio Macri delivered a robust defence of his austerity policy in a State of the Union address to Argentina’s Congress ahead of a reelection bid in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macri went on the offensive in a turbulent session that featured shouts and heckling from opposition lawmakers, declaring there was no turning back on his policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Today Argentina is better off that in 2015. We continue to make profound changes. We have left the swamp behind us,” he said in a vehement speech punctuated by ovations from his Cambiemos (Let’s Change) centre-right coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking loudly and at times angrily, the president said he remained committed to “a zero fiscal deficit” as part of a US$57 billion International Monetary Fund bailout earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He took pains to justify severe public spending cuts which has seen the economy shed 200,000 jobs in the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The fiscal deficit is what causes inflation and poverty,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Opposition lawmakers held up posters saying “Macri Out” and “There is another way”. Others interrupted with shouts of “Liar.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macri’s angry riposte was that “your insults speak for you more than me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macri will seek reelection in October’s presidential election, but the latest opinion poll shows Macri with a 64 per cent disapproval rating among voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since his election in 2015, the market-friendly former Buenos Aires mayor has launched important economic reforms to balance years of spending by the previous leftist government of Cristina Kirchner – but his promises to defeat inflation and place Argentina on the path to sustained growth have proved empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Latin America’s third-largest economy shrank 2.6 per cent in 2018 and inflation reached almost 50 percent, topping 3.0 per cent for the month of February alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The economy suffered two currency crashes last year that saw the peso lose half of its value against the dollar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BUENOS AIRES, March 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) —\u00a0President Mauricio Macri delivered a robust defence of his austerity policy in a State of the Union address to Argentina’s Congress ahead of a reelection bid in October. Macri went on the offensive in a turbulent session that featured shouts and heckling from opposition lawmakers, declaring there was no turning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11624"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}