Juan Marcos Pollio Ruling party La Libertad Avanza (LLA) has intervened the Congressional Budget Office (in Spanish, OPC), the state agency responsible for advising members of Congress on economic and budgetary matters.
The agency was created in 2016 and is composed of experts selected through a public competitive process. It is backed by both chambers of Congress to ensure its transparency and independence from the executive branch.
In early June, LLA lawmakers established a Parliamentary Oversight Committee (in Spanish, CSP) within Congress. This committee ruled that technical offices such as the OPC may not carry out unplanned activities without prior, formal authorization from the committee.
This means that requests for specific reports on economic issues that opposition lawmakers might submit will be subject to the political approval of the commission.
In other words, ruling party lawmakers.
Milei’s ire with the OPC
The OPC’s functions include analyzing the cost of bills under consideration in Congress, reviewing the status of public accounts, studying tax changes, and assessing the evolution of the national debt.
Although the reports are not binding, they are often key references during legislative debates and for the press.
The OPC has drawn the ire of the Milei administration over the past year after its reports repeatedly contradicted government estimates.
During the parliamentary debate on pension increases and the disability emergency in mid-2025, Lower House head Martín Menem stated that the initiatives threatened fiscal balance.
He claimed that both opposition-backed bills would cost up to US$12 billion, equivalent to 1.8% of GDP.
The OPC, however, estimated much lower figures. In the case of the increase in retirement and pension benefits, the OPC projected a fiscal cost of 0.32% of GDP. On an annualized basis, that impact amounted to 0.78% of GDP.
Regarding the return of a pension moratorium, a part of the pensions raise initiative that was also rejected by the government, they calculated a cumulative impact of 0.165% of GDP over two years. For the disability emergency fund, meanwhile, it projected a cost of between 0.28% and 0.51% of GDP.
The OPC’s estimates also played an important role in the discussion between Milei and the universities. Last March, the judiciary cited its data to order the government to “immediately” comply with the University Funding Act.
The fiscal impact of the law amounted to 0.23% of GDP, according to the OPC. Based on this estimate, the judiciary concluded that the savings were “insignificant for the overall public administration expenditure budget.”
A limit on OPC reports
The commission’s goals were explicitly stated in the resolution mandating its creation.
“Any activity, study, or request for information of an extraordinary nature outside of the approved annual work plan must have prior and formal approval of this Parliamentary Oversight Committee,” the regulation stated.
The resolution also limited the agency’s budgetary autonomy. From now on, the OPC’s executive director will no longer be able to make internal adjustments to budget line items without authorization from the oversight committee.
The committee requested detailed information on the agency’s staffing levels and pushed for audits of its management.
This would not be the first time that Milei’s administration has used audits to justify cuts to state programs and agencies, such as universities, social welfare programs, and hospitals under national jurisdiction.
The INDEC precedent
The opposition has criticized the decision, labeling the initiative a “stranglehold” on the OPC and an “information blackout.” Former statistics institute INDEC head Marco Lavagna, a key figure in the production of public statistics, also voiced his concern.
“Independence in the production and analysis of information is indispensable,” he tweeted.
Lavagna became INDEC head during Alberto Fernández’s presidency and remained in that position even after Milei took office in December 2023.
However, he stepped down in February after the government reversed its decision to update the methodology for measuring inflation — a demand that had even been made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) itself.
