President Javier Milei on Monday decreed that the 2023 national budget would be renewed for an unprecedented second time. The extension means he will govern in 2025 using the same budget as in the final year of Alberto Fernández’s government, despite rampant inflation in the intervening years. It comes after Milei’s budget proposal failed to pass in Congress.

Repeating the budget will give the government leeway to assign additional funding at its discretion throughout the year, as it did in 2024. While areas the government prioritizes will receive increases, others may be left with the same budget as in 2023 — which was approved by Congress in late 2022.

Inflation reached 211% in 2023 and 112% between January and November of 2024.

The decree renewing the budget was published in the Official Gazette on Monday. It was signed by Milei, Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Chief of Staff Guillermo Francos. The document states that Francos will be in charge of “adapting” the budget over the course of the year to meet the funding requirements of each government area.

In Argentina, the annual budget is usually adjusted several times throughout the year to compensate for inflation. However, in 2024, president Milei gave little to no raises to areas such as public universities and the innovation, science and technology secretariat, which in the 2023 budget was listed as a ministry.

The government filed the 2025 budget bill in Congress in mid-September. Although it is usually presented by the economy minister, Milei decided to do so himself in a televised speech.

However, negotiations with key political stakeholders did not clear a path to debating the bill. It never reached the Lower House floor for a vote after the government refused to modify the document to reflect its allied governors’ demands for more funds for their provinces.

In October, Milei said in an interview with LN+ news channel he was not worried about his budget not passing in Congress. “I will govern using the 2023 budget,” he said. “It’s Congress’s problem if they don’t want to approve it.”

In early December, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said that passing the 2025 budget bill was not worth risking the government’s goal of zero fiscal deficit. “I’d love to give more to the provinces, but it’s us that don’t have money,” he told LN+.

The government’s budget estimated inter-annual inflation of 18.3% by the end of 2025 — which would imply average monthly inflation of 1.4% — and 5% growth. Economists warned this was excessively optimistic and raised questions about inconsistencies between the scenario outlined in the document and Argentina’s expected income and expenditure.

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