In December 2023, libertarian economist Javier Milei shocked the world with his election as president of Argentina. Now, a year and a half into his presidency, it is clear his policies of deregulation and limited government are working to revitalize his country.
With his bombastic rhetorical approach and distinctive appearance, Milei has often been compared in the press to Donald Trump. But this is more superficial than anything.
While the two do share a revulsion toward wokeness and personally appear to be on friendly terms, Milei has actually worked aggressively to cut down the size and scope of government.
In his first year in office, Milei reduced government spending by nearly 30%. That’s quite unlike Trump’s recently approached Big Beautiful Bill, which will add trillions to the national debt.
According to Ian Vasquez of the Cato Institute, “Since coming to power, Milei has made wide-ranging cuts to Argentina’s bureaucracy. In his first year, he reduced the number of ministries from 18 to 8 (eliminating some and merging others), fired 37,000 public employees, and abolished about 100 secretariats and subsecretariats in addition to more than 200 lower-level bureaucratic departments.”
He has also reportedly repealed an average of two economic regulations per day since taking office.
The result?
Argentina turned a budget deficit into a budget surplus and saw inflation plummet from as much as 25% per month to below 2%.
As National Review reported earlier this month, the good news keeps coming: “Argentina’s economy is growing at 7.7 percent, according to the latest year-over-year data. It grew by 1.9 percent in April, the most recent month for which data are available.”
It turns out government isn’t the answer for everything and taking the boot off the neck of the private sector results in wealth and prosperity. Who knew?
In a lesson for California, Milei also repealed rent controls in Buenos Aires, which resulted in additional apartments coming to the market and better affordability for renters as a result of greater supply.
As renters in expensive cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco can attest, rent control hasn’t kept their cities particularly affordable.
“The functions of the state must once again be limited to defending the right to life, liberty and property,” Milei said in an address at Davos earlier this year. “Any other function the state assumes will come at the expense of its fundamental role and will inevitably lead to the ‘omnipresent Leviathan’ that we all suffer under today.”
This is a lesson American leaders ought to take to heart.
The heavy hand of government extends to far too many aspects of our lives, from our personal lives to our economic lives.
We would be much better off with a leaner government with a narrower focus than the bloated mess we have at the state and federal level today.