Immediately after taking office, the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, signed a decree and reduced the number of ministries from twenty-two to nine. Although tens of thousands of public employees have been disposed of since then, the celebrated reduction is still symbolic, because it only ordered some ministries to absorb others and did not reduce public employment significantly. Milei has managed to achieve five budget surpluses so far. Public works have ceased to be financed to an important degree. Milei closed some government agencies, cut some subsidies, and almost completely stopped discretionary money transfers to provinces. However, Milei expanded the welfare state—including the multiplied pesos (in real terms) for various welfare programs.Likewise, right from the start, and
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