Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Measures taken by Bolsonaro and friends will asphyxiate the 2023 government

Congress is agitated. Votes laws by the bucket in the “concentrated effort” to pass electoral measures and other favors before the recess of the election, which begins in July. In the country, there seems to be the impression that something is happening. This is not news, but only pieces of the collapse of our progressive ruin, like the slaughter in Rio.

Hunger is on the rise, with the highest inflation in nearly 20 years and the lowest average wages in at least a decade. Lots of the poorest are lying on the richest sidewalks in the country, but there are no reports of revolts or looting of food. Perhaps Bolsa Família or its replacement, Auxílio Brasil, will serve to keep the horror at a low boil, perhaps the most accurate prognosis for the national future.

There are no longer “manifestos” or “letters of repudiation” to threats of a coup or to actual environmental destruction. It is no longer about the dead and the sequelae of Covid, with the exception of the relatives and friends of these more than a million people (666,000 dead, below, perhaps 20% more, apart from those who suffer the lasting consequences of the disease).

But, as was said, Congress is agitated, even more so than the government, which has outsourced electoral measures to its parliamentary regents. They approve subsidies, tax discounts, extensions of tax favors, favors for companies embedded in privatization measures, etc.

Although the collection of all governments (federal and regional) has grown a lot, the public sector remains in deficit (that is, it takes on debt to pay the bills, even without taking into account interest expenses).

Whatever the result of the collection, there will be less money coming in in 2023 because of fiscal favors. The collection of the rest should grow less, as it has been favored since last year by inflation and rising commodity prices.

In 2023, any government will have to say how it will prevent the growth of public debt, the first and central issue of whoever gets elected. It will be a reality check for voters or, if there is no solution to this problem, the whole thing starts to go down the drain as early as next year.

The country seems oblivious to all of this, as if sprawled by a kind of “burnout” or crisis burnout, by the continuous hoopla of atrocities or traveling under the influence of drugs of bullshit and internet gossip. Perhaps he believes that nothing can be done but wait until the election.

And election of what? From which program? Bolsonaro reaffirms his reactionary plans every day (Motherland, God, family, weapons, control of the Supreme Court, etc.). His friends begin to advance ideas such as the privatization of health care and the end of the SUS. But who knows what will come out of his atrocity belt. For the rest, there is no conversation, other than that of the country’s best cadres circles, ignored until now.

For now, the PT comes up with the story of “put the picture of the old man again, put it in the same place”—so the “good times” will return. What’s left of the Third Way is a fiction looking for funding and political support, almost all of it disbanded for Lula or Bolsonaro.

Meanwhile, the conditions for running a government starting next year are being further undermined, see the “concentrated effort” of Congress so far and other demented intentions (such as suspending energy readjustment, says it would burst in the next term), to just stay in the economy. Destroyed education, ruin of control institutions, regulatory agencies or environmental inspection seem to be a matter of luxury.

As the carriage rides, until the election, the damage could increase even more.