“It is a PEC (constitutional amendment) of national salvation, a pact of the Brazilian society against hunger”, defended Senator Marcelo Castro, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, co-author of the project, during the debate.
His colleague Marcos Rogerio, from the Liberal Party of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro, assured that the text represents a “blank check” for the transitional government.
“The country runs a serious risk of returning to the scenario of 2015 and the well-known fiscal ‘pedaling’,” he said, referring to the make-up of public accounts for which President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), a dolphin of Lula, was dismissed.
The project will continue for analysis by the Chamber of Deputies, which is expected to start discussing it next week, the news agency reported. There it will need the support of 308 legislators so that it can be promulgated before Christmas.
With support greater than the 49 necessary votes, the PEC will allow maintaining an assistance of 600 reais (114 dollars) and another 150 additional reais for children under six years of age for the most needy families. It also provides funds for popular pharmacies, school meals and an increase in the minimum wage.
These disbursements are contemplated in the Auxilio Brasil program, which will be renamed Bolsa Família, the name it had during the first two governments (2003-2010) of Lula.
Hunger affects 33.1 million of the 215 million Brazilians, according to the Brazilian Network for Research on Food Sovereignty and Security.
The text, which represented Lula’s first challenge to achieve governability when he assumes the presidency on January 1, was the subject of tough negotiations in the fragmented Congress.
Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) and the parties that made up the coalition that emerged victorious in October deployed all their political machinery to work in the Legislature in favor of the approval of this PEC, a norm that, because it alters the Constitution, requires a special majority of 3/5 of the members of the Senate and 3/5 of the members of Deputies.
The transitional government initially requested up to 198,000 million reais outside the spending ceiling and for a period of four years. The markets followed the debates nervously due to fears of an excessive increase in public spending during the Lula government.
Source: Ambito
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