Opinion – Vinicius Torres Freire: Bolsonaro mismanagement epidemic already infects 2023

Any president who takes office in January 2023 will inherit a country torn apart by Jair Bolsonaro. As far as government, politics and economics are concerned, the damage will increase.

Bolsonaro and his accomplices in Congress make a habit of changing the Constitution as one works with ordinances. They do so to blow up the public debt with economically irrational measures, which otherwise benefit the rich. Institutional decay, rather than immediate misery, will cause lasting damage that is difficult to repair.

These people have already caused an increase in inflation that has gone beyond the high price imported from the rest of the world or that derived from bad luck (drought, for example). The recent plans will trigger more inflation, with the resulting rise in interest rates.

Because of ignorance, lack of administrative direction, political incompetence and the risk of impeachment, Bolsonaro is pleased to be dominated by a Congress of the most negotiators. Together, they are willing to pass any atrocious demagoguery or send what’s left of the unstamped budget money to electoral pens.

Bolsonaro and the gang want to reduce taxes on fuel, electricity, industrial products and part of the service sector, as it became known in a few days of February. They also want a Trucker Grant, subsidize urban transport and pay for the gas cylinders of the poorest.

The federal government already spends more than it collects, it has a primary deficit (which does not consider interest expenses). By lowering taxes, you will have to borrow more money. Instead of paying bills with taxes, they will pay with debt, which earns interest for the richest, among other damages.

Once taxes are lowered, it is difficult to collect them again. The favors now, if approved, will take money from the next government as well. By the way, it should be noted that there is no budget to pay the Auxílio Brasil from 2023 onwards.

The Constitution becomes a disposable piece of paper. Hack amendments tore down the sacrosanct spending ceiling. Now, they can be used for the tax spree. The “fiscal rules” (prohibition of spending beyond the ceiling, of making debt like this and that, of having such a deficit) were no longer worth much, as they were too rigid or too soft. The idea that they can be wiped out with monthly strokes of the Constitution demoralizes them for good.

Without rules, with a bad fiscal record and high debt, we will pay more interest to finance deficits. Furthermore, the real will continue to be worth almost nothing or even less, which leads to inflation and poverty.

Tricks to reduce prices may come to naught. Tax rebates can be appropriated by companies before they arrive at stores and gas stations, among other problems.

Most discounts are “horizontal”, apply to everyone. Soon, you will go into debt, pay more interest, etc. to, perhaps, reduce prices for the rich as well.

The entire package of perverse economic idiocy could cost over R$100 billion. Spending this year with Auxílio Brasil, which reaches more than 50 million poor people, should be around R$ 89 billion. It makes sense?

The evils go beyond more inflation, interest, debt, inequity or the demoralization of economic rules and the Constitution. Bolsonaro lures unspeakable people in Congress. It establishes once and for all the idea that power in the Chamber and Senate is a letter of private life, authorization for theft, for unbridled demagoguery, for institutional turmoil and reelection. He ruined once and for all the power and image of the Presidency of the Republic.

How is a sensible government going to stop these people, this institutional bullshit? They broke through the gates, without a mule or trickster.