- Di Maio said the 2019 budget, which must be presented by Oct. 20, will set aside 10 billion euros ($11.6 billion) for 5-Star’s flagship “citizens’ income” of up to 780 euros per month for 6.5 million poor Italians.
He said it will also include 15 billion euros of public investment. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte promised “the biggest program of public investments ever carried out in Italy.”
Salvini said the budget would also allow people to retire earlier, opening about 400,000 jobs for the young, and cut tax rates for a million self-employed workers.
Heartening to see a government actually doing what they said they would do, and looking out for the poorest and oldest. Will it work? Not if Brussels has anything to say about it. But Italy is a wild card in the EU. It was hardly even a functioning country by WWI, since the separate kingdoms were unified barely 30 years earlier. Good on em! Try it out. Throw something at the wall, and see if it sticks. Shit, Germany will bail you out, and the UK won't be sucking off the teat and getting free milk any more. Maybe it's the right time for some dramatic re-thinking of the social safety net provided by governments.