The conflict between the Executive and the Congress on the Increasing of the Financial Operations Tax (IOF) puts in tensions of various origins.
On the one hand, it is a chapter of the rearrangement of relations between the two powers, required by the changes in their relative forces.
As is well known, the presidency has partly lost its ability to control the legislative agenda and parliament has gained more protagonism, due to institutional changes that have succeeded over the years. Among them, the regulation of provisional measures; the growth, in type and value, of the imposing amendments; and the increase in the party fund, which strengthened the leaders of the subtitles represented in the House and in.
The main consequence of all this was the decrease in the government’s control over the Union budgeting part not intended for mandatory expenses – which allowed the government of shift to make its policies and give its own mark to its management. The effects of this change are detailed in the columnist of this sheet.
The other source of tension is properly political and comes from the fact that the center-left president is a minority of Congress and, as a result, depending on a government coalition with a large participation of more pragmatic right parties. This mismatch is not uncommon in the country. Great economist Celso Furtado had already pointed to the conflict between Progressive President and Conservative Congress in the article “The Political Obstacles to Economic Development” of 1965, which became a classic. And it will last as long as the electorate choices continue to produce this disruption.
Heterogeneous congressional coalitions are more difficult to discipline. Especially when the government ceases to rely on some of the instruments to gain the support of parliamentarians willing to set aside conservative convictions in exchange for whatever the cacife for reelection.
Anyway, despite the important defeats suffered by the Government in Congress, produced by its undisciplined base, a survey published by The State of S. Paulo, on Sunday (29), shows that parties in deserving ministries supported the government in 72% of the votes oriented. Quite a percentage, even when it takes into account that the index was 18 points short of 90% of President Lula’s previous management.
In addition, it is undeniable that a congressional basis that includes the pragmatic right limits the scope of policies of change to the left. The discussion on fiscal adjustment and a progressive reform of income tax well demonstrates it.
In any case, it is appropriate to keep in mind two realities: one is that the conservatism of Congress is not the spurious effect of an electoral system that perverts the representation – but the inclinations of the electorate. The other is that coalition presidentialism, the possible way to govern here, undergoes changes without return in its modus operandi, requiring even more negotiations among players.
In real Brazil, there are no magical solutions or great institutions.
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