More Brazil and less Brasília
Proposes revising the federative pact and budget rules, changing legislation to speed up the release of funds and making parliamentary budget amendments more transparent and traceable.
What the program says
“More Brazil, less Brasília” is not a new phrase for us: it is a way of governing that we have already practiced. In our government, the municipality stopped being a subordinate asking for favors in Brasília and came to be treated as a partner, with more autonomy and a bigger leading role for the mayor to sort out the life of their city. And when the pandemic threatened to bankrupt states and municipalities, it was the Bolsonaro government that guaranteed the federative relief, delivered directly to local government to keep health care, the civil service and services running, at the most difficult moment. While some talk about federalism, we practice it. [p. 68]
We will resume and deepen this path. We will promote a review of the federative pact and a redefinition of budget rules and processes, and revise the legislation to speed up approval, the release of funds and accountability. Today the money exists, but it gets stuck along the way: the local administrator receives the funds and cannot spend them, held up by requirements that take months. Unblocking this means getting the school renovated faster, the health clinic running sooner and the citizen’s money going further closer to home. In the same effort to better organize the budget, we will bring more transparency, control and traceability to parliamentary budget amendments, prioritizing their allocation to priority public policies in the Multi-Year Plan, approved by parliament. [p. 69]
In plain language
- The program proposes revising the federative pact and redefining budget rules and processes.
- It provides for revising legislation to speed up the approval and release of funds and accountability. The text states that today the local administrator receives the funds but cannot spend them because of requirements that take months.
- It proposes bringing more transparency, control and traceability to parliamentary budget amendments and prioritizing their allocation to public policies in the Multi-Year Plan approved by parliament.
- The text presents these measures as the resumption of a way of governing that it says it has already practiced, with more autonomy for municipalities, and cites the federative relief to states and municipalities during the pandemic.
What is not in the program
- It does not detail what would change in the federative pact or in budget rules and processes.
- It does not specify which requirements would be changed to speed up the release and spending of funds.
- It does not define how the transparency, control and traceability of parliamentary budget amendments would work.
- It does not name the legal instrument (law, constitutional amendment or other) for the changes.
- It gives no timeline.