Thousands marched in Buenos Aires on Saturday, September 19, 2026, in the Marcha de la Bronca, or March of Anger, protesting President Javier Milei's 2027 budget proposals. These proposals target the repeal of a disability law and the systematic underfunding of public universities, measures designed to achieve a fourth straight year of fiscal surplus for the state. This budget directly impacts over a million disability pension recipients and countless university staff and students, shifting resources from social welfare to state coffers.
President Milei, a self-described libertarian economist, assumed office in December 2023, promising deep spending cuts to eliminate chronic deficits. His administration's 2027 budget, filed just four days ago on September 15, aims to consolidate this surplus by dismantling social protections and public services, effectively privatizing collective resources through defunding.
The proposed repeal of the disability emergency law, Law 27.793, threatens the livelihoods of 1,148,484 people who received non-contributory disability pensions in March 2026. These pensions, valued at approximately US$176 a month plus a US$46 bonus in April, represent a critical lifeline for the most vulnerable, now targeted for elimination.
Public universities face severe budget shortfalls, with the 2027 budget allotting 7.3 trillion pesos, or about US$4.8 billion, significantly less than the 11 trillion pesos (US$7.3 billion) requested by the national council of university rectors. This underfunding directly translates to wage suppression for lecturers and staff, whose salaries still trail inflation by about 32.5% since Milei took office, eroding their purchasing power.
The State's Hand
The state's role in protecting accumulated wealth is evident in Milei's legislative maneuvers. In 2025, Congress passed both the disability and university funding laws, overriding Milei’s vetoes with two-thirds majorities. Deputies rejected the disability veto by 172 to 73 votes, and the Senate followed on September 4, 2025, by 63 votes to 7. However, the government then promulgated these laws while suspending the parts that cost money, citing a lack of funding under Law 24.629, effectively nullifying legislative intent.
Courts later ordered the government to apply the university law, but unions report that compliance remains elusive. The new 2027 budget now proposes to repeal the disability emergency law outright, further cementing the administration's commitment to austerity at the expense of its citizens. Milei's party, La Libertad Avanza, secured over 40% of the vote in the October 2025 midterm elections, giving them enough seats in the lower house to make future veto overrides much harder, solidifying their power to impose these cuts. The Security Ministry, meanwhile, announced it would apply its protocol against road blockades, deploying reinforced fencing at Congress and Plaza de Mayo, warning that those who cause damage will face consequences, a clear move to suppress organized dissent.
Who Pays the Price
The national disability agency, ANDIS, began auditing recipients in 2024, suspending 65,789 pensions. A report from August 2025 found that 46% of the audit letters never reached their intended recipients, highlighting administrative failures that punish the poor. The agency's former head, Diego Spagnuolo, was later implicated in leaked audio allegedly discussing bribes, suggesting corruption within the system designed to serve the vulnerable. While officials stated on September 4, 2026, that about 150,000 cancelled pensions had been restored with back pay, the new budget seeks to impose stricter requirements, demanding a medical finding of inability to work instead of a disability certificate, and ending automatic inflation updates for disability service fees, further tightening the screws on those in need.
Service providers for people with disabilities are currently owed more than 340 billion pesos, approximately US$225 million, in emergency compensation, pushing these essential services toward collapse. The government frames its actions as a fight against "disability pension fraud," a narrative that deflects from the human cost of these cuts and the systemic underpayment of labor.
University teaching unions, facing a government offer of only 3% for September and 3% for October—an offer all unions rejected—have called strikes for September 18 and 22. They plan a fifth national university march for October 15, heading to federal courts to demand compliance with existing laws, demonstrating continued resistance to wage suppression.
Organized Resistance
The Marcha de la Bronca, organized by left-wing parties, picket groups, and grassroots unions, marched from Congress to Plaza de Mayo. Leading figures included deputies Myriam Bregman and Nicolás del Caño of the Left Front, a Trotskyist alliance, and Eduardo Belliboni of Polo Obrero, a movement of unemployed workers. Bregman urged participants to transform anger into organization and mobilization, recognizing collective power as the path forward. Hospital workers from Garrahan, Argentina’s leading children’s hospital, joined the march alongside rank-and-file union branches, showing solidarity across sectors. The main union federation, the CGT, did not formally endorse the protest, highlighting the divisions within organized labor that capital often exploits. The joint closing document of the march called for higher wages and pensions, a ban on layoffs, repeal of the labor reform, a national strike, and a break with the International Monetary Fund, directly challenging the foundations of Milei's economic program and the debt bondage it perpetuates.