Chile Copper Windfall Forces Hard Choices on Spending

“resident Michelle Bachelet is learning the hard way that it really is possible to have too much of a good thing. Record prices for copper, Chile’s main export, have given her government a multibillion-dollar windfall but have also produced unexpected economic side effects and set off a sharp political debate about how to use the money.

Within Ms. Bachelet’s center-left coalition ”” mainly her Socialist Party and the Christian Democratic Party ”” pressure has been growing to apply the bonanza to the “equality agenda” she has promised. But the president and her cabinet have been hesitant to do anything that may undermine Chile’s reputation for cautious fiscal management.”

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