At the center of recent crises between the three Powers, they are usually debated from a political point of view. But what does science already know about them?
The various existing studies, most of them critical, address three major themes: the impact on the relationship between the Executive and the Legislative, the influence on elections and their effects on public policies, explains Maria Dominguez, a researcher at Uerj (State University of Rio de Janeiro) with work on the topic.
The problem is that most of these analyzes still do not cover the post-2020 period, when the transfers, nor do they consider other modalities besides individual amendments, such as “Pix” funds, from state benches, commissions and rapporteurs (these are now extinct).
“Now, there is a great movement of academics to see whether the old conclusions hold true or not. We have clues to think that a lot has changed, but there are still more doubts than certainties”, says Dominguez.
In June, the minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court), to gather technical data before judging whether the government should continue to be obliged to pay for individual amendments, indicated by deputies and senators, and those from state benches.
Ipea (Institute for Applied Economic Research) published a series of studies that show the growing importance of parliamentary amendments in financing public services, but also indicate a lack of technical criteria for allocating resources and a possible increase in inequality between municipalities in receiving transfers.
Find out what the scientific literature has already shown on the topic and what evidence is still lacking.
WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN
Amendments in Brazil took on an atypical proportion in the world
The power that Brazilians currently have over government spending is much higher than that of 11 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, concluded one in 2024, by authors Marcos Mendes and Hélio Tollini.
Even in the United States, where the Legislature can redo the entire Budget sent by the Executive, parliamentarians can only define up to 1% of discretionary expenses (which do not include mandatory expenses such as pensions and salaries). Meanwhile, in Brazil this percentage reached around 24%.
The first part of Ipea’s analysis also reinforces the weight that the amendments gained in the last decade: in health, for example, they reached the impressive mark of 53% of non-mandatory spending in 2023, compared to 19% in 2014. In education, they jumped from R$360 million to R$1.8 billion.
Health amendments do not go to the most needy places
Furthermore, previous studies warn that, despite going to poorer cities, the amendments applied to the SUS “do not consider population health indicators” nor the services already offered in the regions. Furthermore, the inconsistency of the amounts received from one year to the next can make it difficult to plan actions.
As this is the sector that receives the most amendments (at least 50%, as required by law), it is also the most studied. One (Group of Institutes, Foundations and Companies) analyzed the resources distributed to primary care from 2018 to 2022, and then in 2023, crossing them with different indicators.
The conclusion was that the funds tend to strengthen municipalities with existing structures and better health indices: cities with complete basic care coverage, for example, received R$62 per inhabitant that year, compared to R$21 for the group with low or very low coverage.
WHAT STILL NEEDS EVIDENCE
Do amendments actually help elect politicians?
Several studies have already tried to answer this question, but did not reach a consensus: they indicated a “negative”, “null”, “relevant positive” or “limited positive” electoral effect. In 2017, one sought to overcome the methodological limitations of these studies.
The researchers then concluded that, although individual amendments generate votes for deputies, they are not the main instrument for re-election. Furthermore, they showed that the only amendments that guarantee results are those implemented by city halls, especially when the mayor and deputy are from the same party.
These analyses, however, were carried out before the explosion in transfers and the emergence of the “Pix amendments” in 2019, which changed the logic of the game and may have also influenced the re-election of mayors. One showed that 98% of the mayors with the most funding were re-elected in 2024.
How do they affect the relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches?
This is another much explored issue. There is a certain consensus that the mandatory amendments, since 2015, have affected coalition presidentialism. One by Rodrigo Faria (USP, 2023) points to greater difficulty for the president to form majorities, increased governance costs and pressure for positions.
Ipea, however, considers that the size of the government’s “loss of bargaining chip” is still unclear. “A series of studies shows that the Executive conditioned the release of resources on support for policies. It’s a thesis, […] but there is a debate about how decisive it was”, , technician involved in the work — who intends to delve deeper into these aspects.
Researcher Maria Dominguez cites as an example one that did not identify a clear relationship between the moment of execution of amendments and the support of deputies for government projects, from 1996 to 2010. She also remembers that the distribution of amendments previously served partisan interests: “Is the use today more individualistic?”
What is the effect of the amendments on the lives of the population?
This is where one of the few studies (partially) favorable to the amendments appears. One published in 2018 in the Oxford magazine concluded that municipalities that received more transfers for a longer period of time, between 1999 and 2010, had substantial improvements in social and economic indices.
However, these effects were not sustained over time, as the distribution followed the electoral interests of parliamentarians, and not local needs. Again, this analysis covers a period in which the values were negligible, and also examines them in total, without detailing how they were used.
There is still no solid evidence to know whether amendments are more or less efficient than direct government investments, for example. One (Comptroller General of the Union), released in November at the request of the STF, showed that only 11% of works with commission and rapporteur amendments were completed in the ten most benefited cities between 2020 and 2023.
There is also a lack of studies that evaluate the impacts not only on health indicators, but on areas such as education and work. And check whether or not this unequal way of distributing resources helps to compensate for historical regional inequalities in access to services. Ipea promises to delve deeper into these issues.
