Late on Thursday night, Argentina’s Senate passed a law to increase funding for universities. Less than 24 hours later, President Javier Milei says he plans to block it.

“TOTAL VETO,” Milei wrote on X, in response to a post from the University Policy Undersecretary, Alejandro Alvarez, who had said that the president had the final word on whether the funding bill would face a veto or not. Casa Rosada sources told media including the Herald’s sister title, Ambito, that Milei would block the law because it goes against his primary goal of balancing Argentina’s books.

The Law of University Financing calls to update the public university budget based on this year’s accumulated inflation. It also stated that all university personnel would receive bimonthly raises based on inflation. After passing the Chamber of Deputies, it was passed in the Senate with 57 votes in favor, 10 against, and one abstention. 

If Milei proceeds to veto the law, it would be his second veto in a matter of weeks. On September 2, he used the presidential power to block a similar bill to raise state pensions. It would have hiked payments to retirees and prevented them from falling behind Argentina’s total basic goods basket.

Congress can overturn vetos with a two-thirds majority in both Upper and Lower Houses. However, a Deputies session seeking to overturn the pensions veto failed in Congress on Wednesday after five deputies from the UCR party, which had originally pushed for the bill, reversed course and voted with the government. Overall, 87 deputies voted to uphold Milei’s veto. 

At the time, Argentina’s presidential communications department said in a statement that any public spending increases that threaten the government’s policy of fiscal balance would encounter “a non-negotiable wall in this President and the 87 patriots of the Legislative Power. If necessary, we’ll veto them all.”

Milei reportedly plans to prepare an asado next week for the deputies who backed his veto.

Argentina’s public universities are in dire financial straits. Inflation in 2023 was 211%, the highest in three decades. However, Congress did not approve a new national budget for 2024. This means public universities, like other public institutions, started the year with the same budget they had at the start of 2023. The sector thus relied on increases given, at the government’s discretion, throughout the year to make up the shortfall. 

The situation has forced higher education institutions to take drastic measures such as turning out the lights and forbidding use of lifts in order to cut costs. Universities did not open as planned for the second semester of the year after staff went on strike to protest the situation. Earlier this year, the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Medicine’s famed Hospital de Clínicas halved its usual activities and even drastically reduced surgeries because of the funding shortfall.

In May, the government announced it was giving universities a 270% budget increase for operating costs, but universities say that these account for just a fraction of their expenses.