The Brazilian Congress approved on Tuesday (12/21/2021) the Budget Law for 2022, which included the millionaire program for the distribution of subsidies to the poorest, proposed by President Jair Bolsonaro in the middle of the electoral year, and a criticized increase in funds for political campaigns.
The project foresees that the country’s public spending in 2022 will grow to 4.82 trillion reais (about 845.614 million dollars), of which 39% will be used to refinance the public debt.
It also contemplates an expenditure of 15,614 million dollars in the so-called Auxilio Brasil, the revitalized social program of distribution of subsidies to the poorest that Bolsonaro proposed for the year in which he will attempt his re-election as head of state.
The 2022 budget allocates some $ 859.6 million to the fund available to parties to finance their campaigns for the 2022 presidential, legislative and regional elections.
That figure has been the subject of harsh criticism, even among some parliamentarians, since it almost triples the 298.2 million dollars from the State that the parties received with the same objective in 2018.
Congress included at the last minute in the Budget, at the request of Bolsonaro himself, a reserve of 298.2 million dollars for salary increases in the Federal Police, a measure criticized by other public officials, whose salaries have been frozen for several years.
The approved law foresees that the Brazilian economy will grow by 2.1% in 2022, a percentage lower than the 2.5% initially projected by the government but much higher than that expected by economists (0.5%).
It also foresees that Brazil will end 2022 with inflation of 4.7%, above the 3.5% initially projected by the government.
The increase in disputed spending in the election year made Congress’s projection for the state’s fiscal deficit in 2022 raised from $ 8,701.7 million to $ 13,912.3 million.
gs (efe, Extra, Jornal do Brasil)
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