Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Paulo Guedes has just lost the power he didn’t have

A decree by Jair Bolsonaro submitted Paulo Guedes to the official tutelage of Ciro Nogueira, the Civil House Minister, in some minor budgetary matters. Nogueira is a senator and licensed president of the PP, one of the two regents of what’s left of the Bolsonar government: the distribution of money that helps the election of the downtown gang. The other regent is Arthur Lira (PP-AL), president of the Chamber.

They say Guedes lost power. Lost power of what?

To begin with, any Minister of Economy can do little if there is no government with a course and parliamentary base, not to mention social articulation. The government of Jair Bolsonaro does not exist, for all human and positively practical purposes.

When he got involved in economic matters, Bolsonaro sabotaged or demoralized Guedes, as if the minister still needed to be more ashamed after so much promise of a trillion, zero deficit, from next week’s privatization, aside from nonsense and prejudice.

Guedes has no political articulation. He lost his top advisors. Some because they couldn’t do anything or didn’t know how to do it. Some were fried by Bolsonaro. Others left to avoid embarrassment or fear of lawsuits, such as the slop that came out when they kicked the spending ceiling stick.

Furthermore, Guedes lost a piece of his super-ministry filled with kryptonite (the Work). It may be that Planning is also amputated in the “ministerial reform”, a final arrangement by the government for re-election, which is actually a convoluted one.

In October 2021, Guedes was already a lame duck plucked, as written in these columns. So, it had already lost power over the 2022 Budget. That is, over a small part of the federal money, since 95% is stamped for mandatory expenses, in practice more than that, if you don’t want to turn off the light and close the doors of the machine”. Lira, Nogueira and the central committee of the center took over.

The macroeconomic policy, which was little, ended with the inept and picky change of the spending ceiling. It is adrift, in the waves of the interest and exchange market, which more and more will depend on Bolsonaro’s politics, election and atrocities, or in the hands of the Central Bank. End. Of course, it’s always possible to do more bullshit. For all good purposes, that’s it: end.

They say that, with the decree, Nogueira will take on the role of politically defining the destination of some money, arbitrating the hunger of the hyenas. Nogueira takes the cucumber and makes a salad, which he eats with gusto. It’s part of their political diet, which is to cut public money among friends from parishes and corrals.

In other words, the decree requires Nogueira to give approval to changes that are in principle small in the Budget. If there is a surplus of money that can be moved there or here and a special credit (unforeseen expense in the budget law), you can do a favor for “base” friends, as is done with parliamentary amendments, several of them addressed for the regions of ministers who are going to apply. Only in case of a big ruse and catastrophe (opening of extraordinary credits) would big money appear.

Yes, these people will slap each other for “small” money, given the total budget, but “large” in political-electoral terms. It doesn’t change much about the crap that are the plans and budget execution, although it can fill the electoral coffer of the gang, where there are even regional opponents of Bolsonaro.

Yes, in the last half-decade, Congress has had more power to decide what to do, the filth, than the money left over from the Budget. The decree was another advance in this little mouth. As for Guedes, it’s fuss about nothing.