Congress retreats on mandatory amendments, but maintains record value – 12/13/2023 – Power

The Congress leadership gave up on the proposal to expand the mandatory parliamentary amendments next year, a measure that would further hamper President Lula’s (PT) political articulation. On the other hand, parliamentarians maintained in the LDO (Budget Guidelines Law) the value of R$50 billion in amendments for 2024, the election year, which will be a record.

The party leaders’ strategy was to use the LDO project, which creates the basis for next year’s Budget, to establish a payment calendar that, in practice, would make the execution of the so-called commission amendments mandatory.

A new version of the text released this Wednesday (13) by the LDO rapporteur, deputy Danilo Forte (União Brasil-CE), removed the section that determined deadlines for the government to pay this type of amendment.

Amendments are a way in which deputies and senators can send money for works and projects in their electoral bases and, in doing so, increase their political capital. As shown by SheetCongress’s priority is to serve its electoral strongholds, and not the areas with the greatest demand in the country.

In addition to commission nominations, controlled by thematic bodies of the National Congress, there are also individual amendments in the Budget (all deputies and senators are entitled) and bench amendments (parliamentarians from each state define priorities for the region).

Historically, governments use amendments as bargaining chips in negotiations with Congress. It is common for there to be a large volume of these transfers on the eve of votes of interest to the Palácio do Planalto. Therefore, setting deadlines for these transfers leaves parliamentarians less dependent on the government.

Lula’s allies criticize the idea of ​​increasing the amount allocated to amendments in the 2024 Budget, in addition to the provision that created the obligation to pay for commission amendments. The argument is that Congress wants to get hold of almost R$50 billion in amendments.

The Congress leadership’s plan, according to party leaders, foresees that the commission amendments work as if they were the old rapporteur’s amendments — which were the main budget for political negotiations in the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government and which were extinguished by the STF (Supreme Federal Court) at the end of last year.

An article included in the 2024 LDO stamps R$11.3 billion for commission amendments. Individual and bench amendments, in turn, have R$37.6 billion reserved in the 2024 Budget proposal. They are already considered mandatory, due to changes made to the Constitution in previous years.

With the boosted commission nominations, the total value of amendments approaches R$50 billion.

The section about the value was maintained in the new version of the project presented this Wednesday. However, the provision that forced the Executive to pay for this type of amendment was removed.

The LDO project should be voted on this Wednesday night by the CMO (Mixed Budget Committee). Then it will still need to go through the Congress plenary, which should happen by next week.

“I think there has to be common sense in this. I am absolutely against it. I think Congress participates a lot. There are already a lot of amendments”, said PT national president Gleisi Hoffmann (PR) recently.

Government leaders in Congress also criticized the LDO text because of the high cost for amendments.