Dispute over amendments threatens economic agenda – 02/16/2024 – Adriana Fernandes

The return of Congress work after Carnival begins with pressure from deputies so that the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), immediately puts to a vote President Lula’s (PT) veto of the LDO article (Lei de Diretrizes Budget) that established a schedule for the commitment of amendments.

Pacheco has already signaled that he may leave the vote until the end of March, which makes the effect of the schedule practically harmless, even if the veto is overturned later, which is expected.

The calendar is an important piece in the political game of this year’s municipal elections, when government officials want to show strength by increasing the base of mayors and councilors, an essential platform for the 2026 presidential campaign. Amendments are the main mechanism through which parliamentarians allocate resources to their electoral strongholds.

If the schedule was already in force, there would be an entire semester to commit the amendments (until July 1st, as determined by the vetoed section of the LDO).

The process would need to include the evaluation of the works agreements and all the bureaucracy until the actual commitment of the amendments. If the veto is overturned only at the end of March, the calendar will only start to work, in practice, in April, which would make it unfeasible to complete this entire journey in what would only be three remaining months.

The so-called mandatory amendments (mandatory implementation) in the areas of health and social assistance, which are the majority, must be committed by the beginning of the second semester. Then it’s just an election and the beginning of electoral restrictions.

The government still politically uses the timing of the release of mandatory amendments to gain support in interest votes, as occurred last year.

This was the case with the vote on the controversial subsidy MP 1185, which caused money to flow in the final stretch of the year. The resistance was enormous and the measure passed, despite being dehydrated.

The schedule has the effect of taking away from the government yet another piece of political bargaining in the negotiations on the economy’s priority agendas.

In an election year, whether or not you are sure that your amendment will reach the municipality is vital.

For major party leaders, the timing of the mandatory amendments may end up not being a good one.

Deputies with pockets full of individual mandatory amendments are less dependent on the influence of party leaders so that resources are released.

In other words, the hands-kissing of leaders also decreases. Of course, the leaders in Congress have already realized this.

Much was said about empowering Congress with parliamentary amendments and the secret budget. Now, it is possible that there is an empowerment of the lower clergy.

The accounts circulating among deputies indicate that each of them could receive, on average, R$50 million in tax amendments per year.

This is why, for many lower clergy parliamentarians, the schedule has become more important at this moment than the recomposition of President Lula’s cut of R$5.6 billion in so-called parliamentary committee amendments.

It is in this environment that the voting agenda for economic projects, so important for fiscal balance, will have to be processed. Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance) has been picking important fights to stop the erosion of the tax base, a phenomenon seen for years with so few initiatives in the opposite direction.

The risk is of more bomb agendas threatening public finances, although leaders deny that they will do so. Who believes?

More confusion is coming with these amendments. A tidying brake is for yesterday.

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