Last week’s subject was the vote to regulate the tax rate (Tax on Financial Operations). The impacts, the causes and, above all, what this means to the relationship between the executive and the legislature and the 18 months that government 3 ahead.
The government needs. It is unclear whether deputies and senators will not accept any kind of expenses or just if they do not accept those who reach the productive sector, such as the end of.
In any case, the result is that the executive has less control over the Union’s budget and discretionary expenses – those financial allocations that the government can decide how and where to spend – which are increasingly concentrated in the hands of legislators, given the increase in the amount reserved for the destination by deputies and senators through the budget, whether individual, benches or commissions.
By 2025, the budget reserves R $ 59.5 billion to be allocated according to the preference of parliamentarians. To get an idea, individual amendments, from 2018 to 2025, went from $ 8.8 billion to $ 24.6 billion.
I want to highlight two questions that can be associated with the concentration of so many resources in the hands of deputies and senators. The first concerns fiscal liability. The liability – legal, political or through public opinion – always falls on the executive, never about the legislature.
The second is about the legacy that the destination of such a large volume of resources leaves to the country. Isabella Montini, doctoral student at Berkeley, and Alison Post, a professor at the Department of Political Science at the same university, focus on small municipalities, which receive more funds and per capita projects, especially for infrastructure.
A highlight of the work is that deputies and senators prioritize simpler and cheaper projects in these cities, contributing to long -term infrastructural disparities. While street paving is abundant in small towns, more complex and essential projects, such as sewage networks and water treatment, end up being neglected.
This is not about the criminalization of the use of budget amendments by legislators or the defense of an omniscient central planner. But if deputies and senators want to continue to define the direction of the country’s budget policy – both in relation to the focus of fiscal adjustment regarding the allocation of a greater portion of discretionary resources, seeking to control slice greater than that of the executive himself – it is necessary to discuss the responsibility of the legacy for the legacy they will leave.
Be the legacy of reducing investment in social policies and poverty mitigation, or the legacy for infrastructure, which will soon be a bottleneck to the development of the country. The higher the legislature control over the budget, the greater your responsibility.
Gift Link: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release seven free hits from any link per day. Just click on F Blue below.
