Fuera! It has been one year since President Javier Milei arrived, raised hell, and made Argentina great again. It took a single word – the Spanish translation is “out” – to transform the dying South American nation that had been crippled by the shackles of socialism and enslaved by the gluttony of political greed. Milei shocked the system with his victory but also proved to the world that freedom and free markets are the panaceas to destitution and despair, the hallmarks of a socialist state. But while the libertarian chainsaw massacre in Buenos Aires is proving to be a success domestically, the United States could import Milei’s ideas and apply them to the federal budget.
Javier Milei: One Year Later
Argentina’s primary ailment for years had been hyperinflation (211% in 2023) resulting from government largesse, bureaucratic waste, astronomical money printing, and political abuse. While the elites dined in decadence and danced at the ball of Marxism, the country suffered under the boot of the Fernandez-Kirchner regime. The Argentine peso lost most of its value, food prices and rent costs spiraled out of control, shortages were prevalent, and the private sector had been forsaken to prop up the government sector.
Equipped with a chainsaw, proficient knowledge of Austrian and Chicago economics, and a personality and hairdo matched by only President-elect Donald Trump, Javier Milei took Argentina – and the rest of the world – by storm. Milei and his La Libertad Avanza government took the nation from catastrophe to renaissance in just one year.
After immediately taking office, his team starved the beast by employing austerity measures: firing thousands of government workers, eradicating price controls, freezing wages and pensions, cutting government subsidies, and suspending public infrastructure endeavors. As months passed, he halted money-supply expansion and shut down various departments and agencies, including Argentina’s version of the IRS, which was unsurprising as he stood before a list of ministries and yelled, “Fuera!”
Here is a list of results so far:
- Inflation plummeted from 25.5% in December 2023 to a three-year low of 2.7% in October.
- Argentina exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have garnered record inflows.
- Government bonds are up 151% over the last 12 months.
- Housing supply has increased, and rents have plummeted.
- The first budget surplus in 123 years.
Milei is far from finished. In the year ahead, at least on the economics front, Milei has proposed cutting federal taxes by 90%, introducing a US dollar de facto standard, allowing free competition of currencies, deregulating the marketplace, slashing tariffs, and embracing nuclear power and artificial intelligence.
Even if he struggles to fulfill the zenith of his 2023 campaign – shutting down the central bank – the rest of Milei’s actions will have been enough to resuscitate the old adage of “rich as an Argentine.”
Earlier this month, the Conservative Political Action Conference, also known as CPAC, hosted a program in Buenos Aires, with Milei delivering the keynote address. Unsurprisingly, he celebrated Trump, slammed socialism, and pledged to continue his fight against the woke globalists. “Everyone assumed that we were going to fail politically,” Milei said. “Today, they admit, through gritted teeth, that they are surprised.”
A DOGE Blueprint
Is Javier Milei’s form of governing a blueprint for the incoming administration and the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE? This is the word on Main Street and Wall Street.
Indeed, fiscal conservatives and libertarians hope that the Elon Musk-Vivek Ramaswamy tag team can achieve the objective of slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget. While this is a lofty aim, it might be easier said than done, especially for an economy and a dollar hegemony that survives and thrives on the trillions in annual taxpayer dollars wasted.
Because of the political implications, reforming the entitlement system, from Social Security to Medicare, is almost impossible. Believe it or not, federal spending is a key contributor to economic growth. The annual budget, exceeding $7 trillion this fiscal year, represents about a quarter of the national economy. Outlays contribute as much as one-third to the GDP. Wasting taxpayer resources on shoes for Ethiopians and drag queen shows in Latin America allows the government to ship dollars to foreign markets and export inflation.
Let’s face it: The United States has a stranglehold on the planet. If it sneezes, everyone else catches influenza. Argentina can institute successful and necessary reforms because it is not the world’s largest and most powerful economy with a current backed by military might. The status quo is critical for the US – and the bureaucratic industrial complex – to persist.
America desperately needs to implement the prescriptions and panaceas of fuera, but the public must be prepared for an avalanche of temporary discomfort if they are ever enacted.
