Argentine President Javier Milei announced he would send a bill to Congress outlawing the approval of national budgets with fiscal deficits. 

The far-right leader said he would “wall” his austerity measures in a nationwide radio and TV broadcast on Friday night, the same week he vetoed laws recently passed in Congress that sought to increase pensions and disability funds.

Milei said that while those initiatives seemed like “a noble goal,” they were “nothing more than demagogic deception” and accused the politicians championing them of attempting to destroy the “stability that we have worked so hard to achieve” to regain power.

“It would even be politically beneficial” to support those laws, Milei said, “because many voters would have more money in their pockets in the months leading up to the national elections.” However, he added, they would ultimately increase inflation.

“My task is not to look good, it is to do good,” Milei said. “Even if they say I am cruel.”

During his speech, which he gave surrounded by members of the economic cabinet, Milei also said that he would instruct the Economy Ministry to prohibit the Treasury from financing primary expenditure through monetary issuance. 

He said that the government was already implementing that measure, but that it is now “formalizing” it.

In another passage, Milei compared his administration to “an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object,” a line that made the rounds on social media, as some observers said it reminded them of dialogue spoken by Batman’s villain, the Joker, in The Dark Knight.

“The unstoppable force is our determination to change the economic course by implementing a program that has never been done before in Argentine history,” he explained. “The immovable object is politics’ addiction to unsupported public spending.”

He said that the upcoming October midterm elections would “settle this paradox once and for all.”

“We are not going to go back to the past, we are not going to return to the path of decline,” he said. “And I say to Congress: if you want to go back, you will have to carry me out feet first.”

His speech was widely criticized by his political opponents. Starting with her traditional phrase “Che, Milei” (Hey, Milei), former two-time President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wrote a post on X accusing Milei of lying. She said that wages have not outpaced inflation and that the government will have to pay its “sky-high interest rates” by issuing money.

“More than feet first, you will be taken out of the Casa Rosada in a straitjacket,” she added.