Senate approves permanent floor of BRL 400 for Auxílio Brasil

The Senate approved this Wednesday (4) a provisional measure that makes permanent the floor of R$ 400 paid under the Auxílio Brasil program — a substitute for Bolsa Família.

The provisional measure was symbolically approved by the senators. As had already been processed by the Chamber of Deputies, it goes straight to the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

In December last year, the Chief Executive had sent the provisional measure to the National Congress, providing for the payment of R$ 400 from that month onwards. The text, however, did not provide that the value of the floor of the program would be permanent.

Currently, the benefit amount is divided into two parts: a permanent one, whose average ticket was R$224 in November last year, and a temporary one, equivalent to the amount necessary to reach R$400. This temporary amount, called extraordinary benefit, would end in December of this year — therefore, right after the elections.

During its processing in the Chamber of Deputies, the rapporteur of the proposal, the federal deputy and former Minister of Citizenship, João Roma (PL-BA), accepted an amendment and incorporated the permanent value of R$ 400 in the text.

With the change, both in 2023 and 2024, R$ 47.45 billion should be allocated to regular benefits of Auxílio Brasil and another R$ 41.15 billion to the complementary portion, totaling R$ 88.6 billion.

The rapporteur of the proposal in the Senate, Roberto Rocha (PTB-MA), estimated the impact slightly above, at R$ 90 billion.

“It is evidently relevant to increase the purchasing power of the 17 million families who receive and will receive the extraordinary benefit, especially when their social vulnerability is taken into account, according to the criteria provided by law for joining this program”, said the rapporteur in his text.

“We are experiencing an atypical and serious moment of world inflation, with the highest price levels in decades being recorded in several countries of the world. This situation is explained both by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and by the consequences of the worrying military conflict in Europe” , he added.

Rocha rejected amendments that intended, for example, to create a kind of 13th for Auxílio Brasil and include in the program all families that prove eligibility to receive benefits.

Contrary to what happened in the Chamber of Deputies, there was no pressure from the opposition to raise the benefit amount to R$600.

The minority leader, Jean Paul Prates (PT-RN), said that the increase and continuation of the amount of R$ 400 is still insufficient to deal with a situation of economic depression that would have been created by the Bolsonaro government itself.

“The increase in beneficiaries from 14 million to 17 million does not even reach the number of new poor people generated at the time of the pandemic. And before the pandemic, there were already 2 million who had already fallen into extreme poverty”, he says.

“We voted in favor, of course, because nobody is going to throw away the opportunity for an increase for those who need it most. But the number of people who need help has increased much more. And the per capita need has absolutely increased as well”, he added.

Budget Rapporteur is in favor of off-ceiling aid

Also this Wednesday (4), the rapporteur-general of the 2023 Budget, Senator Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI), defended that the resources destined to the Auxílio Brasil program may be outside the spending ceiling.

Castro was unanimously chosen as rapporteur during a session of the Joint Budget Committee. The president of the collegiate will be federal deputy Celso Sabino (União Brasil-PA).

Castro was asked what his position would be if the federal government chose to remove social program spending from the spending ceiling. Castro replied that for now he only hears “information from one side and the other” about this possibility, but that he has not obtained any concrete facts. However, he came forward to be favorable.

“I would be in favour. I think that what the country needs, from the point of view of investment, job creation, and above all social protection, [porque] Can you imagine the number of people we have unemployed in the country, the number of people underemployed, with the income that dropped astronomically during the pandemic. At a time like this you need to set priorities and our priority at the moment, post-pandemic, is to save lives, give dignity to people and we cannot escape this responsibility “, he said.

“My position, which has always been in favor of maintaining the spending ceiling, [mas] in these cases, we could make an exception in favor of saving lives, improving people’s lives, and even saving people who are starving,” he added.

The removal of items from the expenditure ceiling, however, needs to be the subject of a proposed amendment to the Constitution (PEC). Therefore, it cannot be changed by the rapporteur himself or even be present in the budget law.

The rapporteur was also asked about the controversial rapporteur amendments, the RP9 amendments. He said that the problem, in his opinion, is not the quality of these amendments, but the volume of resources that were transferred through this mechanism.