Commission approves preliminary report to try to vote on Budget this year

The CMO (Joint Budget Commission) approved this Monday (6) the preliminary budget report to maintain the schedule and try to complete the vote this year, despite the impasse in relation to the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) of the precatoria.

The PEC authorizes the government to spend another R$106 billion next year. The proposal had its vote concluded in the Senate on Thursday (2), but the lawmakers changed the text and therefore the proposal will need to be processed again in the Chamber of Deputies.

Voting on the preliminary report is one of the steps in the processing of the Budget. With that, the commission can now debate the sectorial reports, which should be voted on next Monday (13).

This is the time necessary for the Congress to reach an agreement on which parts of the PEC will be enacted and which will remain for the next year, said the general rapporteur of the Budget project, Deputy Hugo Leal (PSD-RJ). The final report would be voted on only after the text was approved.

One of the ideas on the table is to enact only the common parts that have already been approved by the two Legislative Houses. Government leaders defend this initiative, which would speed up the payment of the R$ 400 Brazilian Aid.

Senators, however, are resisting and advocating full enactment after an accelerated vote in the House floor this week. They fear that enacting only the provisions that make room for R$106 billion for spending could give the government carte blanche to spend without any type of control during an election year.

The senators, when altering the text of the Chamber, included provisions to guarantee that these resources will be tied, to be applied only to expenses with the Auxílio Brasil program and social security.

“We are awaiting the enactment of the PEC in these days, tomorrow, Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the understanding of the two Houses, whether it will be a partial format or a full format, according to what was done”, stated Leal in an interview.

“From the moment the PEC is enacted, at any point, we are here prepared for both a scenario with greater fiscal space and a scenario with less fiscal space.”

The sliced ​​enactment of the PEC would require new calculations to maintain some of the values ​​expected by Congress, such as the amount of R$ 16.2 billion for amendments by the rapporteur. In his preliminary report, Hugo Leal indicated the value of R$ 1.16 billion in amendments presented in the opinion.

To achieve a higher value, as party leaders want, the rapporteur and Congress will still have to make cuts in other areas of the Budget. In his opinion, he determines that the rapporteur’s amendments will have a ceiling that will be the total of individual amendments and bench amendments — as per the rule passed by Congress last week.

“We have other actions that could also be considered, some kind of cancellation, some kind of reformulation. But we are working today with a scenario awaiting the enactment of the PEC,” he said.

The rapporteur, in practice, adapted the text to the rules approved last week. The money to pay for the amendments and the total amount of the expense, however, have not yet been identified. Initially, the intention was to reserve up to R$ 16 billion for these rapporteur amendments. However, with the tightening of public accounts, estimates are now close to R$7 billion.

Leal said that, if the PEC is not enacted, it will expand the line of cutting expenses adopted in the preliminary report, by 6%. “The 6% can be reformulated, we can make a readjustment, a reinsertion of those values ​​that were cut, but we can also expand the cut line, depending on a lot.”

He also said that, if Congress decides to overturn the veto of the electoral fund in this Tuesday (7) session, the resources may return to the level of R$ 5 billion — in his opinion, he considered R$ 2.1 billion. “There, it is always the sovereign manifestation of Congress. There it is the Chamber and Senate that would have to pass the veto assessment.”