Health, education and Minha Casa, Minha Vida will have more resources with PEC, says rapporteur

The general rapporteur of the 2023 Budget, senator Marcelo Castro (MDB-PI), said that the R$ 105 billion open space opened in the 2023 Budget will mainly provide space for health and education. The parliamentarian also mentioned other areas that will be contemplated, such as the Minha Casa Minha Vida program and the DNIT (National Department of Transport Infrastructure).

The senator said that the largest share will go to health, promising that he will be able to meet the amount requested by the health team in the transitional government, of R$ 22.7 billion. The group has stated that the scenario is one of chaos in health and cites this value for investments in medicines, vaccines and guaranteeing the functioning of the SUS (Unified Health System).

“The most prioritized area is health because this year’s health budget [2023] it is BRL 16.6 billion less than in 2022. And there is still a SUS queue for elective surgeries, mainly because of Covid, which needs additional support, to carry out joint efforts and overcome these queues. Secondly, education, because universities, school lunches, IFs [Institutos Federais]you are following and seeing that you don’t have resources”, he said.

Castro plans to deliver the budget this Monday (12). The parliamentarian’s prediction is that the project can be voted on Thursday (15) at the Budget Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, and, the following week, go to plenary.

Castro met this Sunday afternoon (11) with the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), the vice-president-elect, Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), the former governor of Piauí and senator-elect Wellington Dias, the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, the coordinator of the technical groups of the transitional government, former Minister Aloizio Mercadante (PT), and the future Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa (PT), and the future Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad (PT ).

“As a budgetary space is being created with the approval of the PEC, so we went to show how this space would be presented, recomposed. We are following the suggestion, the initiative of the transition team and we presented the modifications that we judged necessary”, he said, at the exit of the meeting.

The budget rapporteur believes that he will not need to make further changes to the text because the text of the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) of the Transition should not be modified in the Chamber. It is the text that opens up more space for next year’s budget.

The Senate plenary approved on Wednesday (7) the Transition PEC. In yet another test for the elected government, the Senate maintained the text of the CCJ (Commission on Constitution and Justice), amid pressure from the opposition to reduce the impact and duration.

The score for the approval of the base text was 64 to 16 in the first round and 64 to 13 in the second round. The text now needs to go through the Chamber of Deputies, where it will need the approval of 308 parliamentarians.

The PEC increases the spending ceiling by BRL 145 billion in 2023 and 2024 for the payment of the Auxílio Brasil (which will once again be called Bolsa Família) and releases another BRL 23 billion for investments outside the cap in case of extraordinary revenue collection .

The PEC is the main bet of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) to fulfill campaign promises, such as maintaining Bolsa Família at R$600 and an additional R$150 per child up to six years old. The amount reserved for the program without the PEC is only enough to pay R$ 405 per family.

The PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) of the Transition was attached to another proposal on Friday (9). With this, the text does not need to go through any committee and will be analyzed directly in plenary.

The legislative maneuver took place after determination of the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), and was combined with PT parliamentarians. The text is expected to be voted on Wednesday (14).