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With the arrival of Ignacio Briones to the Government, ten days after the social outbreak, communicating vessels were established between Horizontal and the Ministry of Finance that had never existed before, and that have allowed this center of liberal thought to gain spaces of influence in economic decisions of the Government of Sebastián Piñera. Horizontal is the think tank fashionable, in the same way that Expansiva was in the governments of the Concertación and whose founder, Andrés Velasco, coincidentally held the same position as Briones in Teatinos 120.
Several ministers have passed through Horizontal: Juan Carlos Jobet (Energy) and Gloria Hutt (Transport and Telecommunications), and there are some researchers who have been lifted with the Executive crane. This is the case of the engineer Francisca Dussaillant, who in May 2018 joined Evópoli and who is currently the coordinator of the labor policy of the Treasury with a liquid salary of $ 6,509,856
In Horizontal there is a personal permanent researchers and another floating. The first ones work full time in the preparation of studies and columns, such as the commercial engineer Alfredo Maira and the political scientist Alfonso Spain, who develop in this think tank the largest number of documents for public discussion. The second team of researchers includes associates or collaborators who are called to write about certain topics and different views. Among these are Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, Pablo Tusso and Tomás Sánchez. A prominent role plays Pablo Correa, Executive Vice President of Banco Estado, who was part of a group of economists who signed a letter in support of Gonzalo Blumel when he left Interior in the last change of cabinet.
The coordination of these economists continued beyond publication in The Mercury and gave way, through a chat, to form a swimming pool of proposals that could reactivate the economy, marked by COVID-19.
Horizontal remains the senator’s house Philip closet, who structured his presidential campaign from that study center and with which he developed his government program. He is regularly invited to speak, present papers, and appears in many photos on the Thought Center website.
The relationship with Briones has grown closer in these times and every time the minister attends Congress, the senator accompanies him, although he cannot always be with him. This happened when the discussion around the negotiations of the Finance commissions to face the ravages of the pandemic began, Briones asked the congressmen to include Senator Evópoli in those instances that would develop an emergency plan. The request was not accepted and Kast had to remain outside.
This thought center is defined in its 2019 Annual Report as “a factory of novel ideas inspired by social liberalism, with the aim that each individual who lives in our country can develop their life project in decent conditions.” It is precisely some of those ideas that its members try to incorporate into the debate, marked lately by the social demonstrations of last year and by the coronavirus pandemic. They do it by writing documents and columns that the media reproduce on their pages.
One piece of information that shows the power that Horizontal has been achieving is that although they have already closed their editions, many times the economic newspapers open them if Horizontal gives them an exclusive document. Is that anything that comes from the house on Calle Nevería – Horizontal headquarters since November 2019 – generates interest in the media who estimate that, in the future, that paper It could be translated into a concrete proposal from the Government.
The best example is the Zero Base Budget, launched by Horizontal and subsequently accepted by the Treasury. In seven veneers, the think tank explains “how to reconcile the multiple needs of citizens, with an adequate use of public resources.” In the text, dated November 2019, its executive director, Sebastian Left, stated that it was necessary to carry out a reengineering of public spending in 2020, in order to better face the challenges that the State had to address, considering the requirements of society that had arisen from the social outbreak, together with suggesting that this should be with a special emphasis on the middle class and the most vulnerable.
The proposal, in any case, was not accepted last year, but it is intended to be implemented in this year and consists of systematized procedures, focused on analysis, starting from scratch, which allows evaluation to make the best budget distribution decisions , according to the cost-benefit associated with each program. Thus, it would be possible to redirect resources more effectively.
The proposal has aroused criticism from the opposition, which considers it “confusing”, as it indicated to The counter senator PS Carlos Montes. “Not even they, in the Government, know well what the Zero Base Budget consists of. I spoke at length with the Director of Budgets, Matías Acevedo, who explained to me that it is another way to prepare the items for the different services ”.
When the father of the idea was consulted regarding how it would work, Izquierdo points out that theoretically the Zero Base Budget is built from an Excel spreadsheet with all cells empty. But, in practice, the National Budget has a very large drag component due to previous commitments. Therefore, the margin is considerably less than 100%. “With this revolutionary methodology, you work on everything that is not compromised, which can be a differential between 15 or 20 percent. So, there it is identified which are the priorities that the citizenship and the pandemic have generated. And that differential is evaluated basically from scratch, “said the executive director of Horizontal.
These priorities will also be crossed with the analysis of 687 social and non-social plans carried out by the Directorate of Budgets and the Undersecretary of Social Evaluation. Last week, the Treasury and Social Development reported that one out of every four public programs evaluated has an inadequate targeting, so the danger that many of them will disappear is high, such as the National Subsidy for Public Transport program or the Vocation tariff scholarship. Professor, among others.
The shared digital journalist
Without a tie, walking in the street and alternating images of his cabinet in the Treasury, Minister Briones explained in his Twitter account the scope of this new Zero Base Budget methodology would have: “Make an effort to rethink the priorities of public spending, to spend and distribute better”, is the message he delivered in this tweet, which already has more than 100,000 reproductions.
Briones’ threads on the Twitter platform are followed in the political and academic worlds and have managed to position him as a close minister who goes out to tour the city like any son of a neighbor, raising his views and explaining in easy the bills that must be approved by Congress.
The one who manages the digital strategy is not his journalist Camila Miranda, with whom they were colleagues in the French Alliance, but the digital expert Felipe Cádiz. He is Briones’ henchman and strategic director of the Reactor agency, who met the head of the Treasury at Horizontal when he was running it. Both worked in the presidential campaign of Senator Felipe Kast and today Cádiz is in charge of all the social networks of the administrator of the fiscal wallet.
Capital Magazine He dubbed Cádiz as the “digital guru of Minister Briones”, but also advises Horizontal on the same issues, according to The counter its executive director, Sebastián Izquierdo: “He helps us with social networks. It has been a real and great contribution ”.
Izquierdo indicated that the journalist was behind the “Children First” campaign, designed by Horizontal to make visible the need to develop a reform that would include adequate protection for children and adolescents, especially those who are in vulnerable situations. The Government later implemented the National Agreement for Children, signed by the Broad Front and even the UDI. “As this issue was a flag that came from here, at Horizontal we have monitored La Moneda to monitor progress and today the delay in the implementation of these measures reaches 30%,” said Izquierdo.
Consumption tax
Another of the traces that Horizontal has left in economic matters is the proposal of the political scientist Alfonso Spain and of Sebastian Izquierdo, Regarding creating a universal pension for up to 80% of lower incomes that would have to be financed with general taxes of the nation, linked to the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and sugar, and that would be presented to the Minister of Labor, María José Zaldívar . In the text of 18 pages, it is established that the mode of implementation will be similar to the payment and collection of VAT, and it is suggested to implement the Added Pension Value (VPA), equivalent to one point of VAT, which would be included in the price of final products and should be directed to the consumer’s pension savings account. Depending on the income quintile to which the affiliate belongs, the VPA would be supplemented with a progressive state contribution.
So much The Mercury how Third They realized last week that the Government is evaluating the increase in consumption taxes to finance a universal basic pension, so that, if accepted, it would be a new bean that Horizontal would pay to his account in the changing world of the power of influence of the study centers.
For an economist of great prestige at the national level, who prefers not to give her name, there should be a more formal separation between Briones and Horizontal, since – she assures – that the minister every time he can highlight in the media the contributions of his center of thought. “It cannot be that, when she gives interviews, the name of Horizontal is always brought up out of nowhere by the minister. It is as if Sebastián Piñera spoke of Avanza Chile in her public interventions ”.
The force reached by Evópoli on October 28, when two of its militants occupied the most important pair of cabinet ministries, displacing RN and the UDI, configured a new map of power on the Chilean right. The double BB, made up of Gonzalo Blumel in the Interior and Briones in the Treasury, showed a new correlation, but it lasted less than a year. And the big question that arises now is whether Horizontal, once the Government concludes, will retain power and remain on the payroll of thought centers. Or, as happened with Expansiva, it will disappear and will be part of our history.
Candidacy of ex-minister for Vitacura
Horizontal is preparing to work on the entire constituent process that the country has already begun to live in this stage of the campaign for approval and rejection, but which will have its turning point on October 25 with the plebiscite.
In which there will be no involvement will be in the electoral candidacies, they assure in the think tank. Last week, one of its members and board member, Camila Merino, former Labor Minister in the first Piñera government, announced that she would run for mayor of Vitacura. As a way to prevent any suspicions that could arise, Horizontal determined that they will not work on studies or public policies related to that commune.
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