Wednesday, July 8th 2026 - 07:20 UTC
“We are working on setting up the shutdown of the executive branch, of politics really,” Milei said in a streaming interview
Argentine President Javier Milei announced on Tuesday that he will send Congress a bill to introduce a government “shutdown” mechanism, modeled on the US system, that would bar the executive from continuing to spend once budget allocations run out. The measure is part of a package of economic reforms with which the president aims to relaunch his administration.
“We are working on setting up the shutdown of the executive branch, of politics really,” Milei said in a streaming interview. “When you exhaust the budget, you can't spend any more, and the state shuts down,” he explained. The goal, according to the government, is to reinforce fiscal discipline, a pillar of its economic program centered on achieving a surplus.
The package also includes a reform of the central bank's charter. Milei said the bill would explicitly prohibit, with criminal penalties, the bank from financing the Treasury through money printing, a practice he considers one of the structural causes of Argentine inflation. “Fraud and currency counterfeiting are criminal offenses,” he said. The initiative seeks to reverse a 2012 reform, approved under the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, which broadened the bank's mandate from preserving the value of the currency toward multiple goals of employment and development. The president described the set as reforms meant to “repair 91 years of political fraud.”
