Pacheco counters Haddad: Responsibility is not adherence – 04/27/2024 – Market

The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), countered the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, who, in an interview with Sheet, said that Congress also needs to be fiscally responsible.

“It’s one thing to have fiscal responsibility, it’s quite another to demand that Parliament fully adhere to what the Executive thinks about Brazil’s development,” said the senator, in a note sent to the press this Saturday (27).

According to Pacheco, “progress is based on the generation of wealth, technology, credit, opportunities and jobs, not on the burden on business, production and labor.”

The politician from Minas Gerais adds that, from the point of view of expenses, the approval of measures such as the spending cap, pension reform and legislative frameworks, such as basic sanitation, are the work of Congress.

“Not to mention the 2023 agenda that we fulfilled in favor of record revenue for the Brazilian state. Therefore, the admonition of Minister Haddad, for whom I have respect, is unnecessary, not to mention unfair to Congress”, concludes the president of the Senate.

In the interview, published this Saturday, when commenting on the change in fiscal targets for 2024 and 2025, Haddad stated that the “Executive cannot impose its agenda on the Legislative”.

He also gave examples of adjustment proposals that were “dehydrated” by the National Congress, such as the one that provides for the extension of payroll tax relief for companies and city halls — the measure was questioned by the government in the STF (Federal Supreme Court and five magistrates already voted for it to be suspended.

“It has become a parliamentarism that, if it goes wrong, does not dissolve the Parliament, but the Presidency of the Republic”, said Haddad.

“Nobody wants to take away anyone’s prerogative. But a Power cannot [o Executivo] be subject to strict rules, and the other [o Parlamento], no. If the requirement for fiscal balance applies only to the Executive, it will never be achieved.”

The issue opened yet another crisis between the government and Congress. On Friday (26), the Senate took action against the STF (Supreme Federal Court) against the preliminary decision that suspended sections of the law that extended the exemption and said that minister Cristiano Zanin was based “on mistaken factual assumptions”.

“[A ação] surprised everyone, especially given the moment we are living in of discussion and search for alignment between the federal government and the National Congress”, said Pacheco on Friday.

Created during the Dilma Rousseff (PT) administration, the tax exemption was extended successively. The measure allows the payment of rates of 1% to 4.5% on gross revenue, instead of 20% on Social Security payrolls.

In 2023, the benefit was extended until the end of 2027 and extended to city halls. But the text approved by Congress was vetoed in its entirety by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In December of the same year, the Legislature overturned the veto.

The crisis between the Powers has been increasing since last year, after a series of court votes on controversial issues, such as the time frame, the decriminalization of drugs and the authorization of abortion for up to 12 weeks after conception.