Former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister in Donald Tusk’s government, Jan Vincent Rostowski, appeared as a guest on Radio Zet’s morning show hosted by Bogdan Rymanowski. He asserted that if the Civic Platform returns to power, funds would be available to support social programs this time around.
How the Tusk government looked for funding
It’s important to recall that in 2014, while Donald Tusk was Prime Minister and Law and Justice announced the Family 500 Plus program in the lead up to the autumn 2015 parliamentary elections, the Prime Minister claimed the budget did not hold enough money for its rollout.
There was even a provocative moment when he joined mountain rescuers in Zakopane, joking that they might not be “buried” there; if he found them anywhere, he would be the luckiest man in the world who could direct funds to families raising children.
In 2015, then Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz warned that carrying out such a program could blow public finances and push Poland toward an insolvent Greece scenario.
On election night in October 2015, after Law and Justice secured a victory and formed a new Sejm majority, Rostowski, speaking to the same audience, referenced the party’s election promises with the well-known line that there would be no money and no intention to fulfill them.
Funds for social programs
Eight years of Law and Justice governance demonstrated that substantial budget funds could appear, provided there was decisive action against groups that benefit from tax privatization, including VAT-related mafias.
It is noted that the VAT gap, which stood near 25 percent at the end of 2015, and potential revenue from this tax—initially modest at 4.3 percent by the end of 2021—were reflected in the 2023 budget, where VAT revenue was projected to exceed PLN 286 billion, approaching the total budget revenue. In 2015, the revenue totaled PLN 289.1 billion.
Meanwhile, all planned budget revenues for 2023 exceeded PLN 604 billion, and expenditures surpassed PLN 670 billion, meaning both revenue and spending were more than double the figures from 2015.
Under the United Right, a substantial budget remained available, with more than PLN 213 billion spent on the 500 Plus program over roughly seven years through December 2022, supporting families with children. Pension-related outlays were also significant, including the 13th and 14th pensions in 2022–2023, with more than PLN 44 billion spent in 2022 and an estimated PLN 70 billion in the current year.
Opposition claims that the United Right financed social programs by indebting the state were refuted by data showing the debt-to-GDP ratio ending 2022 at 50.3 percent, lower than at the close of the PO-PSL government in 2015, when it stood at 51.3 percent.
PO program
Rostowski, as edited by Rymanowski, suggested that if the Civic Platform returns to power, funds would be available not only for Family 500 Plus but also for zero-interest home loans promised by Tusk and for rent subsidies of PLN 600 per month. The estimated cost of such a plan would run into tens of billions of zlotys in coming years.
Yet memories of how leading PO politicians spoke about election promises linger. Rostowski and Radosław Sikorski were heard in a broadcast joking about promises, suggesting that promising twice is like keeping once or applying a binding standard only to believers.
Against this backdrop, Rostowski, together with Rymanowski, asserted that a future Civic Platform government could sustain funding for 500 Plus and additional support programs such as zero-interest mortgages.
Source material for these remarks: wPolityce