Ruling party La Libertad Avanza (LLA) managed to get a commission-approved version of the 2026 budget bill in the Senate on Friday, after a sensitive chapter axing social spending was rejected in the Lower House.
With officials from the executive branch in attendance, the bloc led by Patricia Bullrich left the issue ready for discussion in the Upper House on December 26 after a three-hour commission session.
The 2026 budget bill was approved in Chamber of Deputies, but Lower House lawmakers rejected the crucial eleventh chapter. This included repealing the Disability Emergency and University Financing laws, as well as several other social spending cuts.
Local media reported that the government could even veto its own budget if the version that passes includes these spending provisions.
Other initiatives in that section of the budget bill included cuts to heating subsidies for people in cold areas and abolishing the system that updates child benefits according to inflation. Despite the cuts, the section also included the extension of the Emergency for the Garrahan pediatric hospital.
During Friday’s meeting, Treasury Secretary Carlos Guberman noted that the presentation of the budget represents “an important step” and recalled that last year, no budget bill had been discussed.
Since taking office, President Javier Milei has never passed a budget of his own. In Argentina, when the government cannot pass a budget, the previous year’s budget is extended and the government can assign additional funds at its discretion. This is necessary to compensate for inflation.
Argentina is currently working with an extension of the 2023 budget. If the current budget fails to pass, the country will not have had a new budget for three years.
Guberman said that the reorganization of public accounts required the “elimination of expenditures that do not correspond to the government.”
“We are taking another historic step toward fiscal order so that every Argentine can live in a stable country,” LLA senator and chairman of the Budget and Finance commission Ezequiel Atauche said in an X post.
However, the opposition does not see it as an officialist victory, especially after they managed to strike down the controversial chapter.
“The budget vote in the Chamber of Deputies sent an interesting signal: the government does not have everything going for it, as some would have us believe; they are making themselves appear stronger than they really are,” said left-wing leader Myriam Bregman.