Pensions have historically been the primary component of Italian government spending. Last year, the state's cost topped $300 billion, more than double the cost of health care. Pension spending was 9% of GDP fifty years ago. It is now 15.6. This explains why the governments most vulnerable to unpopularity, like as Giuliano Amato's, Lamberto Dini's, and Mario Monti's, have worked hard to keep social security spending under control. The novelty is that now a government that is very attentive to consensus, such as the Meloni-Salvini one, is also attempting it, the same Salvini who, until yesterday, harangued the crowd under the windows of Elsa Fornero's house to protest the reform signed by the Turin professor, whom he referred to as "the pension thief." Today, it is fairly striking to observe that the center-right's budget law wants to restrict access to early retirement, which was the core element of the Fornero reform, a Monti administration minister. The groups penalized by the new regulations are once again taking to the streets. The doctors went on strike yesterday, but the protest is likely to expand because the rise in interest rates would have an impact on the pensions of 700,000 public employees.
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