What’s at stake in the fight over the budget

The text by deputy Danilo Forte (União-CE) approved last week by the Mixed Budget Committee on the Budget Guidelines Bill (LDO) 2024, which should be voted on in plenary this week, could reduce the government’s bargaining power . This is because it creates new rules for the execution of individual amendments and state benches, which are the instruments used by parliamentarians to send money to their electoral bases for works or investments.

The Budget Guidelines Law, the basis for preparing the General Budget of the Union, should be voted on by the plenary of the National Congress in a session to be held this Tuesday (19), according to Danilo Forte.

According to him, Congress gained “autonomy” by defining some rules for the allocation of amendments to the Union Budget. Individual or bench amendments must be paid in a maximum of six months, which reduces the government’s bargaining power. But the Legislature’s victory was smaller than what parliamentarians wanted.

As a result of agreements with leaders, the rapporteur made a supplementary vote to remove the deadlines for payment of another type of amendments, those by committee. But it decided to maintain the minimum allocation of 0.9% of 2022 net revenue for these amendments, with two thirds going to the Chamber committees, and one third to the Senate committees.

The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) wanted to continue maneuvering resources, through ministries, to use them as a bargaining chip in moments of political uncertainty and to win votes on important issues for the Executive. On the other hand, deputies and senators wanted greater power to decide on this money.

After the Federal Supreme Court declared the old RP-9, or rapporteur’s amendments – which became known as the secret budget – unconstitutional, at the end of last year, the government gained more freedom to manage these resources, released via ministries, gaining greater power about the budget. But parliamentarians complained that the funds were taking a long time to be paid, and tried to find ways to regain power.

It was in this context that, during the discussion of the Budget Guidelines Law, the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), even suggested to the rapporteur, Danilo Forte, that he transform the amendments of permanent committees of Congress into mandatory ones, that is , mandatory payment, and even if they respected a pre-determined payment schedule.

Despite Lira’s commitment, the rapporteur ended up giving in to the government’s appeals, which complained that it would have little room for maneuver in the budget, and removed the obligation to commit (payment commitment) to these amendments, maintaining the expected value at around R $11 billion.

New rules reduce the government’s discretionary power, says deputy Gilson Marques

According to the report, the tax amendments will have to be contracted in the first half of 2024. In case of resource constraints to meet the fiscal target, the government will have to make cuts, in the same proportion, in the amendments and other non-mandatory expenses of the Budget . Another provision determines that, after the amendment is settled, it will have payment priority over other expenses.

The report approved by the Mixed Budget Committee also maintained the new execution deadlines for individual parliamentary amendments (which total R$25 billion) and state benches (R$12 billion). These amendments are mandatory, but the Executive, until now, decides when this occurs.

“We have always had the democratic principles of dialogue, of building consensus. I myself was forced, at times, to have to back down because I saw that I didn’t have the necessary consensus”, declared Forte.

For the leader of the Novo Party in the Chamber of Deputies, Adriana Ventura (SP), the establishment of dates for the payment of mandatory amendments, both individual and bench, was a victory for the Legislature. The deputy stated that this was “a counterattack to the take-it-go” generally used by the government to increase its bargaining power in winning votes to approve matters of interest to it, as happened recently in the vote on the reform tax.

The deputy emphasizes that the Budget cannot be used in an electoral manner, ahead of the 2024 municipal elections, nor as a means of maneuvering in votes. “In addition to the issue of deadline, the mandatory amendments should be used strictly for the common good, based on data analysis and with technical criteria for choosing beneficiaries, aligned with state public policy planning”, she points out.

Adriana Ventura also reminds us that we cannot forget that the Brazilian budget is short, and, therefore, should not be spent on anything that is not essential.

For deputy Gilson Marques (Novo-SC), it is indisputable that Congress gained greater power in LDO 2024, as the rapporteur set a deadline of June 30, 2024 for the commitment and payment of the mandatory amendments, to cover health and assistance costs. Social; which according to him, “reduces the government’s ability to manipulate the Budget, releasing resources close to important votes”.

Also according to the parliamentarian, the inclusion of a minimum value of R$11 billion for committee amendments will make the combined amendments reach a total of R$50 billion in 2024. “The greater the value of the amendments distributed by Congress , the lower the discretionary amount left for application by the government itself”, explained the deputy.

PT President complains about the value of amendments to Congress

The national president of the PT, deputy Gleisi Hoffmann, in yet another chapter of the war for the power to distribute amendments, attacked Congress for reserving R$48 billion for parliamentarians in the base text of the 2024 Budget. Of the total approved in the Law of Budgetary Guidelines (LDO), R$37 billion are for mandatory payment within 30 days after the proposals are released.

Gleisi said that Congress is imposing a type of “budgetary parliamentarism” after the Judiciary banned the mechanism previously called “secret budget”.

“The Joint Budget Committee made further progress in the budget allocations to be executed by parliamentarians. […] Just to give you an idea of ​​the magnitude of the number, R$48 billion is more than half of what was allocated for all investment in the country this year”, the deputy posted on a social network.

Gleisi stated that the increase in the value of the amendments – which are closing 2023 at around R$39 billion – will impact social programs and investments in the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), which could reach a total of R$1, 7 trillion by 2027.

Congress tends to increasingly increase control over the budget, says analyst

For political analyst Adriano Cerqueira, from the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP) and IBMEC, Congress increasingly wants to reduce dependence on the Executive when defining the release of resources foreseen in the budget, generally used as a form of pressure to obtain advantages in projects defended by the government. For Cerqueira, with the declaration of the unconstitutionality of the secret budget by the STF, which guaranteed more freedom to Congress, President Lula’s power over the budget’s money increased again, which displeased parliamentarians.

“This struggle that is happening is to make the so-called mandatory amendments – what is foreseen in the budget and has to be voted on the following year. That is what is at issue. The government is losing the discretion it had before to define which amendments whether or not they would be privileged in the release of resources”.

Cerqueira remembers what happened last week, when the government released R$10 billion in amendments to guarantee the approval of matters on the economic agenda, which were analyzed in the Chamber.