A single senator controls, through, a higher value than the budget of 44% of Brazilian municipalities. Each deputy, in turn, has funds greater than 14% of cities, points out a survey by Sheet with budgets designed for 2025.
The numbers illustrate what congressmen can concentrate in the local level after the legislature promoted in the last decade.
Each of the 81 senators has this year R $ 68.5 million to indicate where the federal government must spend (higher than 2,291 cities), and each of the 513 deputies, at least R $ 37.1 million (over 712 cities). The execution of these funds by the executive is mandatory, and at least half needs to go to health.
In the case of deputies, this value must be even higher. In July, the mayor, Hugo Motta (Republicans-PB), decided “by head” on commission amendments, which in theory should be decided in a group to try to reinforce their base in the house.
Adding this amount, each deputy may have in his hands this year R $ 48.1 million, more than the budget of 27% Of the municipalities – this last modality, however, is optional for the government.
The account does not yet include bench amendments, which individually among congressmen, breaking a (Supreme Federal Court).
Amendments are a way for parliamentarians to direct resources to investments and costs on their electoral bases, which can yield votes for both those who send them and those who receive them. THE Sheet It showed, for example, that 98% of.
“It is, in a way, as if each parliamentarian had a fiscal feud to call his own,” says Élida Graziane, FGV’s administration professor and prosecutor of the São Paulo Public Prosecutor’s Office. For her, the legislators took office of the executive at all levels of government.
“Congressmen have become more powerful expense orders than many ministers, governors and mayors. They enjoy the best of worlds: they have the bonuses to release expenses in the midst of so many tax restrictions without being required to account or bid,” he says.
State analysis indicates that the amount available for each senator is higher, for example, that the budget of 80% of the municipalities of Tocantins and in the 60% in Rio Grande do Sul, Rio Grande do Norte and Piauí. Deputies also control more money than 22% of the cities of Santa Catarina and 33% of Amapá.
They are, of course, small municipalities. Almost all of them have less than 20,000 inhabitants, except Piraí do Sul (PR), Marialva (PR) and Pirenópolis (GO), which are in the range of 20 thousand to 50 thousand residents.
The trigger of the amendments happened quickly. Until 2022, the values were at $ 15 million to $ 17 million per parliamentarian. That year, however, Congress decided to expand the limit of individual budget amendments and end the egalitarian division between the two houses.
The money in the possession of a single senator, then tripled the following year (to $ 59 million), while the deputies doubled (to $ 32 million), until they reach the current figures. Suddenly, legislative offices were flooded with funds, reversing the logic of political agreements.
If it was previously the parliamentarians who knocked on the executive’s door to release resources, in recent years the ministries have come to Congress and distribute booklets – a kind of menu with programs that need amendments – to deputies and senators.
The trigger of values did not translate into greater criteria for their distribution. In 2023, Sheet (3% of a total of 594), which adopted some kind of public rule, such as public notices or consultations, which, according to parliamentary advisors, remains exception.
“I am a great defender of individual amendments as a link of representation between the parliamentarian and the voter, but the current amount and the power that Congress has been taking place since 2014 has to be regulated,” says researcher Beatriz Any, who studies the strengthening of postdoctoral legislature at USP.
It argues to end collective amendments, limit amounts and review the obligation of payment, theme. It also regrets that the control has remained the judiciary, noting that Congress has already been self -regulated in the past, as in the budget dwarf scandal, a diverting scheme revealed in 1993.
The report sought the 2025 budget rapporteur, Senator Angelo Colonel (PSD-BA), and the president of, David Alcolumbre (Brazil-AP Union), but they did not respond.
The analysis of Sheet Used budgets approved by annual budget laws of 5,245 municipalities (94% of the total), with data sent to the National Treasury in the first quarter of 2025, through the “summary budget execution reports”.
The budget is the maximum amount that each city is allowed to spend throughout this year. In practice, therefore, they can spend less, which would increase even more, proportionally, the weight of amendments.
