Let’s pretend that on Saturday and Sunday we don’t vote for Europe and in certain municipalities to choose the mayors. Let’s go after the deafening chorus that would like the elections to be a referendum on the right-wing government in Italy.
So we should evaluate whether the right deserves our vote which for example, first in opposition and then in government, has sworn to abolish excise duties on fuel; to then create at most tables with the average prices to be displayed in the distributors, an obligation which however vanished among the stamped papers. Also forgotten without leaving any traces is the “tricolor shelf” which was supposed to save our daily spending from inflation. However, the increase in VAT on diapers remained, but fortunately the impact was alleviated by the collapse in the birth rate which, inexplicably, not even the rallies were able to stop.
The war on the poor – via citizenship income – and on non-aligned young people – from the anti-rave decree to beatings in the square – are flags of every self-respecting right. But the supreme banner is the War on Taxes. So what do the bulletins say? The CGIA of Mestre, i.e. the study center of an association very far from both the left-wing oppositions and the desire to make the treasury happy, notes that in 2023 the tax pressure reached 47.4%, or 5 percentage points more compared to the official numbers which stand at 42.5%. However, a decline, thanks to the remodulation of the rates and a GDP that is not completely stagnant, but only 0.2%. A breath of fresh air that no one was able to notice, however, due to the increase in bills, motorway tolls, Tari, health tickets, transport and postal services.
Or rather, those who pay the taxes because they are honest and/or forced have not noticed. Then there are the others, those with whom according to the right the taxman must make friends. Although it represents self-employment, the association estimates that Irpef is paid by self-employed workers only for a third of what is due, equal to 30 billion euros. In 2021, the income of the flat-rates declares an average of 33 thousand euros gross per year, with an evasion which, according to the CGIA of Mestre, stands at 67%.
The right deserves our vote for favoring corporations, from lifeguards to taxi drivers. For the lies about public health, cut in favor of private individuals and now mocked with a last minute decree without money but full of things that have already existed for years. For the insults to the flood victims of Romagna, accused by a minister of wanting to make the most of the damage, kept at bay with buck-passing and compensation that arrives only in small part and in a drop-per-drop, threatened by a deputy minister of not even seeing those if anyone dares ” criticize”.
The right also deserves our vote for having stopped immigration by seizing the ships of those who save lives at sea – see under war on the poor – and forcing them in the best cases to reach the most distant ports, preferably in cities administered by the opposition. It deserves it because although industry, agriculture and tourism ask for more immigrants, even those who arrive legally are hindered in every way, making the residence permit often a mirage and denying citizen rights even to the children of foreigners born in Italy, even if perfectly integrated.
He deserves our vote for the New Year’s Eve shootings, the trains stopped for ministerial needs, the ministers, ministers and administrators who, we are reassured, will remain in their places even if sent to trial for crimes against the State. For the pincer on public information at the cost of burying it. For the constant winks at fascism “which no one is interested in anyway” and yet we feel the irrepressible need to clear it, rehabilitate it and even exalt it.
The right must be voted for having asked for the resignation of the President of the Republic after having voted for him (the 759 votes out of 983 will not all have come from the Bolsheviks) and before ousting him with a distortion of the Constitution which, yes, interests no one except those who wants to command without hindrance. For calling itself “pragmatic” and then shielding itself from any reactionary or simply retrograde ideology: against abortion, against homosexuals, in favor of any nonsense useful to divide “us” from “others”.
But in short, enough, are we voting for Europe or not? So let’s pretend that the lira was better with double-digit inflation, as well as the interest on loans and mortgages, especially for those who live on their salary and cannot make up for it on the customer-consumer. That it was better not to have any PNRR after the covid catastrophe, as happens in all countries that have to make do outside Europe. That to face the new large and medium powers it would be better to go it alone, climate change and the energy transition, strengthened by public debt among the highest in the world and total dependence on others for raw materials.
Or let’s not pretend anything happened. And we vote accordingly.
Stefano Cicchetti
Press
