After the degradation of politics under Bolsonaro, we return to it when the president disregards the commitment to moderation he pretended in 2022. Once again in campaign, he turns against the elites and rentiers looking for votes from the poorest.
A scam. Its unsustainable spending keeps it extremely high, transferring R$1 trillion to the rich minority this year. This small elite will pocket the same amount paid to 41 million beneficiaries of the .
There are two new tricks: the end of , boasted by the new , and the promise of free .
Wonderful, the propositions don’t stop there. The first would stagnate Brazil for good; the second would promote bottlenecks that would even make it impossible to maintain the roads on which buses travel.
If in the 1980s a Brazilian worker achieved 46% of the productivity of a North American worker, today he produces a quarter (25.6%). We have been standing still for seven decades and it takes us an hour to do what the American delivers in 15 minutes.
The reduction in working hours would have to be accompanied by jumps in productivity for us to grow without inflation. This depends not only on education, but on more machines and investments from companies — hampered precisely by the enormous interest rates that Lula’s budget imbalance causes.
In terms of fares, the city of subsidized a record R$6 billion in 2024 to maintain the system and provide free passes for the elderly and on Sundays.
It’s almost comical: while the government struggles to tax another R$30 billion in order to close the 2026 Budget, the transport sector calculates the free bill at almost R$100 billion. The account does not close.
The trick is that there will be no cost in defending such proposals. All political damage will fall on those who have the responsibility for rejecting them. After everything the country has been through, this is what we have.
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