The Chamber of Deputies approved this Tuesday (14) in the first round the base text of the second part of the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) of the Precatório, which provides for the release of R$ 43.8 billion in the Budget to meet expenses extras planned for 2022, including Brazil Aid.
The base text was approved by 327 to 147 — at least 308 votes were needed. Deputies began to vote on suggestions for modifying the PEC, but the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), decided to suspend the vote and resume this Wednesday (15) to try to improve the quorum.
After voting the highlights, the PEC goes through a second round vote, in which it needs to obtain again a minimum of 308 votes. If there is no change in merit, the text goes to promulgation.
Deputies must suppress the provision that contains provisions for the payment of installments of the precatory of Fundef (Funding for the Maintenance and Development of Elementary Education and the Valorization of Teaching) within the same year. The Senate created this calendar to prevent the government from paying these resources to states ruled by political opponents only after the 2022 election.
Initial agreement also provided for a change in the article dealing with the limit for payment of court orders. The text that came from the Senate had rules until 2026. The Chamber wanted to drop the expression “until the end of 2026” in the article that establishes this ceiling — the deputies wanted to extend it until 2036.
With the suppression, the PEC would have rules for calculating the payment of court orders from 2022 to 2026. After that, there would be a vacuum as to whether the mechanism would continue to apply and under what rules. Fears that the amendment could return the text to the Senate, however, led deputies to give up on suppressing the passage.
The PEC was criticized by the opposition and center-right parties. For the leader of Novo in the Chamber, deputy Paulo Ganime (RJ), it was possible to obtain space to pay for the social program in another way. “Auxílio Brasil can be done, it is possible to increase the assistance program for the poorest population without defaulting,” he said. “Brazil has room to cut expenses. We have the rapporteur’s amendment, we have funds, we have a lot. But nobody wants to cut expenses.”
Deputy Erika Kokay (PT-DF) said that the resources could be used to pay for the rapporteur’s amendments and for electoral purposes. “It is the government of the subterranean character of its own actions,” he said. “This government will collect, if this proposal and default are authorized by this House, more than R$ 100 billion so that it can dispose of these resources in a desperate attempt to contain the weakening of its voting intention.”
Deputy Jandira Feghali (PC do B-RJ) also warned about the electoral purpose of the proposal. “In the coherence of our work, it is not possible to continue voting the PEC dos Precatórios, which sought, solely and exclusively, to make an electoral shakeout and create a fiscal space, without any transparency, of a much greater value than would be the Auxílio Brasil, to have a resource again in an election year, to do electoral politics,” he criticized.
The proposal approved on Tuesday contains the changes made by the senators to the PEC of the precatório and which depended on a vote in the Chamber of Deputies.
To unlock Auxílio Brasil, the president of the Chamber and of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), agreed the promulgation of the common text last week and decided that the changes in the Senate would be attached to a PEC in progress in the Chamber.
With this Tuesday’s approval, the full effect of the Precatório PEC is reached — BRL 106 billion in 2022. However, according to calculations by the Ministry of Economy, the value is insufficient to meet the promise of adjustment of civil servants made by Bolsonaro, to to expand parliamentary amendments and to raise the resources of the election campaign financing fund.
Last week, the promulgation of the first part of the PEC was marked by criticism from senators, who pointed out that the agreement had been broken during the vote in the Senate. Parliamentarians questioned the enactment of two articles, without the changes made by the senators, which remove the linkage of spending by the federal government. Thus, they claim that the proposal could open a loophole for the government to freely spend the resources.
The version approved in the Chamber on Tuesday seals the Senate criteria for the use of the space released by the PEC, that is, limited to mandatory expenses linked to inflation, Brazil Aid and payroll exemption.
Initially, the PEC dos Precatórios was designed to change the rule for calculating the expenditure ceiling, which limits the advance of expenses to inflation, and to set a limit for the payment of judicial debts of the Federal Government, against which there is no longer any appeal.
The part that represents a dribble in the spending ceiling was not modified by the Senate and, therefore, was already enacted last week. The pillar dealing with the payment of court orders was changed by the senators, which made a new vote by deputies necessary.
On Tuesday (7), Lira and Pacheco announced an agreement to enact the part of the PEC that was left unchanged. The government is trying to complete the vote on the second part of the proposal this week.
The economic team has the space of R$ 106.1 billion to be able to accommodate all the expenses foreseen for 2022.
To ensure the expansion of Auxílio Brasil, the government needs an additional R$ 51.1 billion.
Another R$ 48.6 billion will be allocated to the correction of social benefits for inflation, the expansion of the spending ceiling of other powers (due to the change in the rule) and the adjustment to the constitutional minimums for health and education.
There is also an extra bill of R$5.3 billion to pay for the extension of the payroll exemption for companies, a measure already agreed upon between the government and the National Congress.
According to leaf revealed, the vote of the first round of the original PEC was maneuvered by Lira to increase the chances of approval of the measure.
The text, a priority of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, Lira’s ally, passed through the Chamber in the first round with a slack of only four votes — 312 favorable votes (at least 308) — in the early hours of November 4th.
Remote voting, as defined by Lira, allowed deputies “in performance” on an official mission trip to vote without registering presence in the plenary’s biometric identification system.
ITEMS ALREADY PROmulgated
1) Change in the spending ceiling index
what is the ceiling: constitutional rule approved in 2016 that limits the increase of most federal expenditures to the inflation of the previous year
how is today: the ceiling is corrected by the inflation measured by the IPCA in 12 months until June of the previous year
how is it: the amount is recalculated, retroactively, based on the IPCA from January to December; in practice, it widens the roof.
2) Refills to municipalities
what does the PEC: possibility for municipalities to pay debts to the Union in installments if they approve local Social Security reforms
Conditions: municipalities will have to demonstrate specific changes in social security rules. One is that municipal employees will not be able to pay lower rates than federal employees
WHAT’S NEEDED TO PROMOTE
1) Ceiling for payment of court orders
what is precatory: debts of the Union already recognized by the courts and without possibility of appeal
how is today: court orders entered in the Budget are paid
how is it: a maximum amount to be paid in the year is created (calculation is based on the amount paid in court judgments in 2016 and corrects this number for inflation); the court orders that fall outside this limit must be paid in other years
2) Linkage of expenses released after the PEC
what does the PEC say: the BRL 106 billion to be authorized after the completion of the entire PEC would only be used for some expenses
list of expenses: mandatory expenses (retirements, pensions and expenses linked to inflation), Brazil Aid and payroll exemption
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