With the New PAC, we return to the State that induces development – 08/18/2023 – Rodrigo Zeidan

The first PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) started out well, but ended up looking more like a Corruption Acceleration Program. It gives the impression that we are going to have the return of a plan that seems to come out of an interventionist primer from the 1970s.

We return to the State that induces development with the New PAC. Isn’t the idea of ​​madness trying the same thing over and over again, knowing it doesn’t work?

Still, it might work. What really matters, and what has always been lacking in this type of program, is something simple: good execution.

In Brazil, the debate on the enterprising State is sometimes shallow, with people who say that the Brazilian government only knows how to transfer money from the poor to the rich and others who claim that, without the State, Brazil would be nothing but banana plantations. Reality, of course, is not binary. The problem is not whether the State is enterprising or not, nor so much its size, but rather its competence to carry out its plans efficiently.

The same State that induces a space race that took dogs to space and human beings to the Moon can create money drains like unfinished refineries or power plants in the middle of the bush to hide almost infinite expenses.

That the New PAC in itself is not the best of ideas is not hard to see. The president, like a good politician, seems more concerned with the announcement of a trillionaire package than with the details of the projects themselves.

But there is hope. For every outgrowth of PAC Energia, there are hundreds of Minha Casa, Minha Vida residential projects (which, even if imperfect, paid off), which have changed people’s lives.

You know that guy who says he has a great idea but can’t tell you because you’d steal his idea? Ignore him. His idea is worthless. Hell is paved with good ideas.

What really matters is implementation. Basically, any really innovative product is not the result of a brilliant idea, but a unique ability to transform something, often routine, into a phenomenal product or service. And mediocre ideas can be better than good ideas, if the former are well executed and the latter are not. Creating a New PAC is a mediocre plan, but after a government with outlandish ideas, go for it.

It is not possible to judge in advance whether these initiatives will work. What we already know is that the idea of ​​the State inducing development in the country never worked as a whole, whether during the military era, or during Lula and Dilma.

Some good programs have emerged in the midst of so many awful projects. If the Lula government is careful with public money, approving expenditures, even trillions of dollars, based on robust projects, perhaps it will be able to induce development. Human capital is not lacking. There are many people in the public sector with managerial skills to run these projects. There is no shortage of serious people who want to contribute to a better country.

Of course, if the goal is just electoral, to put money into the economy quickly, it will go wrong. Again. A leaner PAC (an acronym that should be abandoned, by the way), with a good selection of programs, is much better than something grandiose, just to put big numbers on social media.

And there is no program that encompasses everything. The New PAC has nine axes, which cover almost everything, from health and education to digital inclusion and defense. Whoever wants to do everything does badly. Once again?

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