BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Sept 16, (AP): Libertarian President Javier Milei of Argentina presented the 2025 budget to Congress late Sunday, outlining policy priorities that reflected his key pledge to kill the country's chronic fiscal deficit and signaled a new phase of confrontation with lawmakers. In an unprecedented move, Milei personally pitched the budget to Congress instead of his economy minister, lambasting Argentina's history of macroeconomic mismanagement and promising to veto anything that compromised his tough slog of tight fiscal policy.

The president's budget proposal followed a week of political clashes in the legislature - where Milei controls less than 15% of the seats - over spending increases that the administration warns would derail its IMF-backed "zero deficit” budget. Opposition parties have sought to pass laws to raise salaries and pensions with inflation to help hard-hit Argentines cope with brutal austerity.

"The cornerstone of this budget is the first truth of macroeconomics, a truth that for many years has been neglected in Argentina: that of zero deficit,” Milei told lawmakers, facing a handful of empty seats as most of the hard-line opposition Peronist bloc, Unión por la Patria, skipped his address. "Managing means cleaning up the balance sheet, deactivating the debt bomb that we inherited.” Milei's supporters interrupted his speech - packed with his usual libertarian talking points - with whoops and cheers.

It will fall to the opposition-dominated Congress, which controls the government’s purse strings, to approve the final budget. Milei’s political isolation makes matters fraught, setting up weeks of negotiations with political rivals who insist on concessions. But Milei vowed that nothing would stop him from pressing on with austerity. "The budget is a declaration of principles,” said Argentine economist Agustín Almada. "Even if there is no compromise from the opposition, Milei will continue pursuing this fiscal contraction.” If the stroke of a veto pen failed to prevent powerful lawmakers from spending, Milei promised to find other ways to cut down the state.