Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Bolsonaro may run out of money to pay centrão and approve Auxílio Brasil

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Brazil Aid does not yet exist. The money to pay Auxílio Brasil isn’t either. Perhaps there is no dindim to fund the approval of this and other expenses in Congress. It is hard to believe that deputies and senators fail to approve a basic income for the poor, with less than a year to go before the election. But the political soup has thickened, there are problems in the courts and the deadlines for delivering the benefit to the small people are almost over.

Brazil Aid for the time being is just an empty provisional measure. There, it is not said how much will be paid to each family, nor exactly for which ones, nor how, apart from those that are already in Bolsa Família and look there. There are only a few days left to define all this and more.

Congress is still far from signing off on the creative accounting and default that will finance (also) Auxílio Brasil. Without that, you can pay benefits this year. For 2022, it only has the money to pay for the old Bolsa Família (around R$190 per month for 15.6 million, not R$400 for 17 million, as the government wants).

Cabalizing votes with money from parliamentary amendments became more difficult. Justice Rosa Weber, of the Supreme Court, suspended the payment of the “rapporteur’s amendments” (changes in the allocation of budget funds defined by the parliamentarian who drafts the final proposal of the budget law. In general, they benefit those chosen by the heads of the center).

The “rapporteur’s amendments”, Bolsolão, paid many of the votes that approved in the Chamber, in the first round of voting, the Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) which formalizes the default of part of the court orders and changes the readjustment of the federal expenditure limit . But the second round in the Chamber is missing, there are two rounds of the Senate.

Next week, the Supreme should decide whether to stop the “rapporteur’s amendments” altogether. At best (for the government), the mere uncertainty will make business in the Chamber and Senate difficult, which is already quite unruly.

In addition to readjusting the spending ceiling, the PEC authorizes the government to fail to honor at least R$ 47 billion of the R$ 89 billion in court orders it should pay in 2022, a default that does not sit well with the Senate and could end up in court. The ceiling readjustment should yield almost as much money for the federal budget.

However, the government needs an extra R$47 billion just to pay Brazil Aid in 2022. It says it will need another R$24 billion extra to pay for social security benefit adjustments (since inflation will be higher than predicted by the project of budget law).

There will be little left for extra parliamentary amendments, rapporteurs or other mummies that they invent. If the Supreme Court overturns the “rapporteur’s amendments” and if Congress doesn’t make a spending agreement, Jair Bolsonaro will have more problems sustaining the “old policy”.

If the PEC dos Precatórios does not pass or is essentially amputated, the government will have to improvise even more, more than it did with Auxílio Brasil, due to technical incapacity, negligence and laborphobia. It would then have to pay some aid to the poor with extraordinary credits, which is theoretically illegal. Who knows how he will find money to pay for the extra readjustment of social security benefits, etc.

The Congress people weren’t born yesterday, they almost always get dressed up. The fiscal, judicial and political trick is half freed. Almost no one in the power system wants to behead Bolsonaro in court or by impeachment, for that matter. It is true that the GDP of 2022 is being dissolved in the acid interest rates of the financial market, but Bolsonaro and Centrão do not care. However, the risk of screwing up even the naughty gang has increased.

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