The Chamber of Deputies has just concluded the analysis in the first round of the Proposed Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) of the Transition. The deputies rejected the highlight presented by the New Party, which intended to remove from the text the determination that the President of the Republic send to Congress, by August 31, 2023, a complementary bill to discipline a new fiscal regime.
At this time, parliamentarians are analyzing the proposal in the second round. O the basic text of the proposal was approved at the end of this Tuesday night (20) by 331 votes in favor and 168 against. The matter aims to guarantee resources for social programs in the 2023 Union Budget, such as the continuity of the payment of the Auxílio Brasil of R$ 600, which will once again be called Bolsa Família, and the real increase in the minimum wage from January.
The proposal establishes that the new government will have R$ 145 billion in addition to the ceiling, of which R$ 70 billion will be used to fund the social benefit of R$ 600 reais with an additional R$ 150 per child up to 6 years old. The PEC also opens fiscal space for another BRL 23 billion in investments for a period of two years and not for four years, as the transition team wanted.
Agreement
After an agreement between party leaders and interlocutors of the elected government, the proposal of the rapporteur, deputy Elmar Nascimento (União-BA), left these values out of the ceiling for one year. Initially, the text approved by the Senate provided for a duration of two years.
The other BRL 75 billion can be allocated to expenses such as health policies (BRL 16.6 billion), including the Popular Pharmacy program and the real increase in the minimum wage (BRL 6.8 billion). As it is a suppressive amendment (removal of an excerpt from the PEC), the reduction of the period of validity from two years to one year does not need to be voted on again by the senators.
In the rapporteur’s assessment, the spending ceiling ended up compressing the space for public investment and the measure will “recover the state’s investment capacity, in order to enable a national infrastructure that is minimally able to provide conditions for a faster economic recovery”. The matter approved by the deputies removed from the PEC an excerpt that would allow donations from international organizations to be excluded from the spending ceiling.
