Tax framework project will have changes in the Chamber

One of the crucial projects for the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), the new fiscal framework, under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, will have changes and, for that, the Executive will need to make concessions. Deputy Cláudio Cajado (PP-BA), rapporteur for the proposal, has already said that the text delivered by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, will undergo changes even before being voted on in plenary and sent to the Senate. One of them should be the inclusion of punishment in case of non-compliance with the spending rule.

The deputy also emphasized that there is no reason for the federal government to pursue a fiscal target without foreseeing the consequences if the result is not achieved and that most of the congressmen with whom he spoke agree with the need to impose sanctions, without necessarily constituting a crime. of responsibility, liable to give rise to the opening of impeachment proceedings against the President of the Republic.

The alternative to criminalization would be the determination of periodic contingencies to the Budget or cuts in resources for certain areas. The PT bench in the Chamber stated that it also does not accept this option. Haddad said in an interview with CBN this Friday (5) that disagrees with the possibility of making non-compliance with the goal a crime, considering that this initiative may be affected by decisions by the Legislative or Judiciary.

In recent days, the fight for the approval of the fiscal framework has become even more challenging due to the government’s evident difficulties in articulating in Congress. The significant defeats of the Planalto in the Chamber, such as the removal from the agenda of the Fake News Bill, which had its support, and the rejection of items that made the Sanitation Framework more flexible, decreed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) , are clear indications of this fragility.

During a meeting held in the Senate by the Movimento Brasil Competitivo (MBC), at the end of April, the rapporteur classified the proposed framework model as “intelligent, modern and with countercyclical triggers”. Cajado, however, emphasized that he was open to suggestions. His opinion should be presented next Wednesday (10), after the return of the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL) from an official trip to New York (USA).

With that, the general expectation is that the vote on the text will be for the week of the 15th. For now, the name of the project has already changed its framework to “sustainable fiscal regime”.

Senators point out distortions in the original proposal

Opposition senators, in turn, promise to impose more changes to the project that they consider vague and incapable of guaranteeing the balance of public accounts. The leader in the Senate, Rogério Marinho (PL-RN), says that parliamentarians critical of the government will strive to approve a better version of the framework. But he warns that the first project sent by Planalto to Congress is just a “letter of intent”. “The proposed mockery does not guarantee security for the economy to grow consistently in the future”, he opined.

For Izalci Lucas (PSDB-DF), there is no doubt that the government’s text was less credible than Haddad’s previous presentation in the Senate. “It is ridiculous to take the Union out of fiscal responsibility. It is very easy to spend everything and leave the pineapple for the next government. That is why there is the Fiscal Responsibility Law”, he argued.

According to him, the framework puts states and municipalities under pressure, but frees the Union, “just sending to Congress justification why it did not meet the goal”.

Senator Oriovisto Guimarães (Podemos-PR) assessed that the original text of the framework contains “gotchas” capable of opening loopholes for extra spending of almost R$ 1 trillion by 2026. make contingency and still introduces questionable devices”, he said. One of these tricks would be to exchange payment volume for budgeted volume. “That alone releases BRL 255 billion”, he illustrated.

The second “gotcha”, adds the senator, would be to include as a basis for calculating the framework the BRL 145 billion authorized by Congress to be spent in 2023 outside the ceiling, in Constitutional Amendment 126/22. This device alone would provide R$ 810.8 billion in additional spending until the end of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) term.

Recognition of the importance of the project ensures approval

Specialists consulted by Gazeta do Povo believe that the government’s defeats in Congress do not threaten the approval of the fiscal framework, since it is a structural measure of real importance, attested by almost unanimity among parliamentarians. However, they note that weakness in political articulation will prevent the government from exerting decisive influence over the final design of the proposal.

According to Marcos Queiroz, an analyst at consultancy Arko Advice, the formal opposition to the government may have been encouraged by the defeats suffered in the Chamber, but recognizes that they were the result of unstable votes by congressmen from the center. He foresees that the tendency is for there to be a propositional action on the part of the centrists, with the objective of making the proposal more rigid, and not an opposition to the fiscal framework.

Luiz Filipe Freitas, an analyst at Consillium, also believes in the approval of the text based on a negotiation effort between the Executive and the Legislative. He highlights the importance of Arthur Lira, who should lead the changes in the project, without harming the government. According to Freitas, the key to governance at the moment is convincing Lira and his allies of the importance of the fiscal framework.

Leandro Gabiati, director of Dominium, considers that there is no controversy regarding the merits of the project, but that there are political risks that could affect its processing. He highlights the pressure from economic actors in favor of approving the framework, but also mentions the CPIs that will be installed in the coming weeks, the investigations involving former president Jair Bolsonaro and the government’s failures to articulate as possible obstacles.