El Ciudadano
Original article: Un espejo incómodo: los $5.200 millones que el Estado gastó en la carrera de Kast
A Discomforting Reflection: The $5.2 Billion Spent by the State on Kast’s Political Career
For 16 years as a congressman, José Antonio Kast received over $5.2 billion in salary and public funds to support his legislative work. Today, he criticizes a state apparatus ‘full of parasites who live off him.’ The inevitable question arises: how does this rhetoric align with his own professional journey funded by the state?
1. How Much Did the State Invest in Kast’s Career?
From 2002 to 2018, while serving as a congressman for the Metropolitan Region, the state allocated more than $5.2 billion — adjusted for inflation as of September 2025 — to sustain José Antonio Kast’s parliamentary activities, encompassing both his salary (diet) and allowances that financed his legislative work.
In broad terms, it is estimated that he received around $2.332 billion in direct remuneration and approximately $2.870 billion in allowances for staff, office expenses, travel, consulting, and publicity. Essentially, for 16 years, a substantial part of his professional life relied on public resources sourced from the taxes paid by the entire citizenry.
2. What Could Be Funded with Those $5.2 Billion?
To frame this amount in relatable terms, it helps to compare it with concrete examples:
- It equates to over 10,400 minimum salaries of $500,000, which translates to nearly 867 years of minimum wage for one individual.
- It corresponds to approximately 4,000 salaries of $1,300,000 for healthcare workers or other public officials.
- It is close to the cost of building a medium-sized CESFAM, capable of serving thousands of people annually.
In simple terms, the state allocated to Kast’s parliamentary career an amount that, if utilized differently, could have translated into more infrastructure, services, or public jobs serving the community.
3. Attendance and Legislative Work: The Other Side of the Coin
Records from the Chamber of Deputies themselves show that between 2006 and 2018, José Antonio Kast accumulated 146 absences from sessions and 896 absences from committees. Sessions and committees are the heart of legislative work: this is where laws governing pensions, healthcare, education, social rights, and security are discussed, modified, and voted upon. This is the minimum expected from someone who receives public funds to represent the citizens in Congress.
“It’s not just about how much he was paid, but how present he was to do the work for which he was compensated.”
4. The Narrative Against the State Versus His Own Work History
Simultaneously, Kast has promoted a harsh narrative against the state, associating it with an apparatus ‘full of parasites who live off him’ and a ‘rotten’ system drained by operators and incompetence. This narrative aggressively targets public officials and services that often work under precarious conditions to sustain social policies and basic rights.
Here lies the uncomfortable reflection: while accusing others of ‘living off the state,’ his own professional trajectory was financed for 16 years by substantial public resources, alongside a record of absences that raises questions about the quality of his legislative work.
5. What Is Really at Stake?
No one disputes that the parliamentary diet and allowances are legal: they are regulated by the Constitution and approved annually in the Budget Law. What is under discussion is something else: the coherence between discourse and practice.
When a public figure harshly criticizes those working in the state while having built a significant part of his career with state resources and questionable attendance performance, the public has the right to question whether that criticism is genuine or merely a political tool.
In summary, the over $5.2 billion that the state allocated to José Antonio Kast’s parliamentary career not only allows an understanding of the real cost of his time in Congress in concrete financial terms but also interrogates the core of his current narrative. Under the same measure with which he condemns those who ‘live off the state,’ his own political history is exposed to that scrutiny and serves as an uncomfortable mirror that this article brings to the fore.
La entrada A Discomforting Reflection: The $5.2 Billion Spent by the State on Kast’s Political Career se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.
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