The PT believes that it will be able to approve the 2023 Budget in less than two months and begin to govern already with the endorsement of the increase in expenses to pay campaign promises of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).
The idea is to foresee, as of January, the maintenance of the amount of R$ 600 of Auxílio Brasil and also the real increase (above inflation) of the minimum wage.
Party members want to increase the minimum wage above inflation – as Lula promises, replacing Bolsonaro’s policy –, but some economists have even studied implementing this gain only on May 1, Labor Day (instead of January 1), which would make the cost of the Union with the measure be R$ 3.9 billion.
This would reduce the impact of the measure on public spending. But PT president Gleisi Hoffmann guaranteed that the idea is to start the year with a real increase in the minimum wage (which brings the bill to R$6 billion).
Scheduled to act in the negotiations around the changes in the Budget proposal for 2023, former governor and senator-elect Wellington Dias (PT-PI) told Sheetin October, that the new rule for correcting the minimum wage must consider the average growth of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the previous five years, rescuing the logic used during PT governments of considering the expansion of the economy in the calculation.
Dias gave this Wednesday (2) an interview to the GloboNews channel in which he confirms the rule. Using this method, he states that the real salary adjustment should be around 1.3% or 1.4% (which should raise the minimum to at least R$1,307 in 2023).
Bolsonaro’s budget project foresees an increase in the minimum wage of R$ 1,302 in 2023, a value that only considers the adjustment for inflation, estimated at 7.41% at the time of sending the project.
However, as the INPC has decelerated, the inflation correction should remain below this level (the most recent official projection is that the index ends 2022 at 6.54%).
Budget approval is the new government’s first test
The approval of the Budget is the first test of the political articulation of Lula’s elected government. Before assuming the presidency of the Republic, PT and the transition team will try to work out with Congress a solution to fit expenses into next year’s budget.
“The current Congress will have goodwill. The people decided at the polls that they want to have the aid of R$ 600 and that they want to have a real increase in the minimum wage. President Bolsonaro also promised that. So I don’t think we will have any difficulties in approving this until December,” PT national president Gleisi Hoffmann (PR) told Sheet.
The rapporteur-general for the 2023 Budget, Senator Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI), said this Tuesday (1st) that he also hopes to approve the project by the end of the year, but that the start of negotiations with Lula’s team will be this Thursday (3).
Lula’s allies are evaluating measures to ensure that there is money for the promises of the president-elect. The main idea is a PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) to authorize the PT to spend more than the spending ceiling for next year – a constitutional rule that prevents spending growth above inflation.
Members of Lula’s transition team and the rapporteur, who is also an ally of the PT, claim that it is possible to approve the Budget and the PEC almost together.
A PEC, however, has a slower process, as it depends on three-fifths of the votes and two votes in each House.
In the campaign, Lula promised to maintain the minimum payment of R$ 600 to beneficiaries of Auxílio Brasil. The Budget project submitted by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) provides an average of R$ 405 per month for families in the income transfer program (the increase has a cost of approximately R$ 50 billion).
Bolsonaro, however, also pledged, in the midst of the electoral race, to change the Budget to increase the budget for the program and R$ 200 more if the beneficiary gets a job.
Lula, then, made a new bet and said he will pay for the extra benefit of R$150 per child up to 6 years old in Auxílio Brasil (which has an estimated cost of R$16 billion).
The PT also wants to include these resources in the 2023 Budget, but for some members, this measure should not start as early as January. It is necessary to finalize the design of the proposal, obtain the approval of Congress and regulate the payment of the extra benefit for this to be implemented.
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