If you don’t want to spend three minutes to watch the clip, my message is simple: Milei is showing the world – especially the supposedly conservative parties in different nations – that it is possible to solve a fiscal crisis with genuine spending restraint.
In the United Kingdom, a former member of Parliament has already grasped this message.
Here’s some of what Steve Baker wrote for City A.M., starting with his grim assessment of the United Kingdom’s fiscal situation.
This country stands on the brink of a fiscal crisis unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. The numbers are stark: a projected £41.2bn shortfall by 2029-30; a debt-to-GDP ratio nearing 96 per cent; and interest payments on government debt that doubled in a single year, now topping £16.4bn a month. …This isn’t some distant theoretical problem – it’s a looming catastrophe that will devastate millions of hardworking families within my lifetime. …Labour MPs refuse to countenance spending cuts and continue to demand higher spending that they simply cannot fund. The Chancellor raised taxes to record levels and will do so again within months. …We’re asking working people today to fund promises we know we cannot keep. Unfunded state and public sector pension liabilities are on top of that.
He’s right. If anything, he’s understating the problem on his side of the Atlantic.
Though I would add that it’s not just the fault of big-spending politicians from the Labour Party, though they are hopelessly bad.
The author says that the United Kingdom needs a dramatic change. Indeed, the U.K. needs Milei-ism.
Argentina faced a choice between decline and radical reform. Milei chose reform, cutting government departments entirely, slashing public spending and refusing to fund the state through currency debasement. The results speak for themselves: inflation falling from over 200 per cent to manageable levels, the first budget surpluses in decades, and growing economic optimism. Argentina moved from basket case to economic poster child in 18 months. …We can continue pretending the welfare state is affordable and public services can improve through higher spending, or we can embrace the radical honesty that Argentina found under Milei, acknowledging that the current system has failed and building something better in its place. …The battle for our free future begins now.