A-Infos (en) Brazil, Lut FOB: Communiqué: DOWN WITH THE FISCAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE LULA-ALCKMIN GOVERNMENT (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The Lula-Alckmin government (PT-PSB) through its Minister of Finance, Fernando 
Haddad (PT), took to Congress the so-called "New Fiscal Framework" - NAF 
proposal. In practice, this project is a new spending ceiling, and in reality its 
very existence already marks a permanent fiscal adjustment that penalizes male 
and female workers, especially the black working population, especially women. 
---- The fact is that there is no economic need to build this new spending 
ceiling other than political pressure from capitalists of national and 
international origin, especially those who hold public debt securities and the 
financial groups that command the economy global. The proposal reached Congress 
and the urgency of the project has already been approved, at the request of the 
Lula Government. The rapporteur for the proposal in congress is federal deputy 
Cláudio Cajado (PP-BA), who was an ally of the Bolsonaro government and sponsored 
by Artur Lira (PP-Alagoas). The rapporteur has already made changes to the 
original proposal and managed to make it worse.

The main point of Lula-Alckmin's election was to save the Republic of 1988, and 
to save that Republic is to favor the ruling class that has controlled economic 
policy since then. In this sense, the NAF is just a fiscal development of the 
"Golden Rule", the "Fiscal Responsibility Law" (2000) and Constitutional 
Amendment 95 ("spending caps"), which froze for twenty years, in 2016, social 
spending.

In this sense, the NAF is fully associated with the neoliberal economic consensus 
that is the basis of economic stabilization plans, such as the Real Plan. This 
consensus understands that: 1) stabilization policies are designed to gain market 
confidence in maintaining such a regime; 2) fiscal policy should be conducted 
with the objective of generating a primary surplus necessary for balancing public 
accounts; 3) gain the market's confidence about this purpose; 4) monetary policy 
must have the sole objective of maintaining price stability, through inflation 
targets predetermined by an independent central bank and 5) it would be up to the 
State to guarantee a business environment to favor capitalists. In this sense, 
state spending must be directed towards maintaining order, public security and 
borders; compliance with laws and contracts; the protection of private property 
and property rights.

Social democracy and its degenerate reformism is incapable of even doing the 
least, which is to present Brazilian workers with an economic proposal that 
reduces social inequality and improves the living conditions of the people. Quite 
the contrary, the social-democratic political forces that support the Lula 
government are tied to the class conciliation pact and are terrified of any 
possibility of any mobilization or popular uprising. They are today unsatisfied 
defenders of the bourgeois order, of the bosses.

NAF: new anti-people spending cap

  First, it is necessary to make it clear that the debt and GDP ratio is not a 
problem in itself. This debt can even finance better schools, the SUS, housing, 
agrarian reform, environmental protection and construction of rail transport. 
However, the political-economic creed of the NAF does not treat it that way. The 
government's economic team starts from the idea that it is necessary to stabilize 
the public debt as a ratio of GDP to produce a drop in the reference interest 
rate and, with that, stimulate private investment. For this reason, the NAF 
proposes as central to the sustainability of the public debt, directing the 
budget to pay its creditors. What Minister Haddad calls creating a business 
environment for investors. In this way, the proposal's main objective is to 
withdraw the expenses that the State makes in social investment and 
infrastructure and to guarantee that the budget resources are in the hands of 
debt creditors, who are those who receive from the government and at the same 
time earn from financial investments. The expectation of the minister of finance, 
his team and the financial market is that with this signal the Central Bank will 
reduce interest rates to, in theory, facilitate investment. In short: it's all 
based on creating expectations for the capitalists, through the State, to drain 
the resources from the budget directed to the working class.

The new spending cap project goes against public services, worsening the Unified 
Health System (SUS) and resources for public education. It makes any serious rail 
transport policy unfeasible to improve the quality of life of male and female 
workers. It has a direct impact on the resources of the National Education 
Development Fund (Fundeb), in addition to other areas such as Science and 
Technology, Social Assistance and the Environment. Only the increase in the 
Minimum Wage and the Family Allowance are currently protected from the 
capitalists' rage.

The FOB and its federated organizations have always signaled that the only path, 
from now on, is through direct action to build Socialism through the Social 
Revolution. There is no possibility of negotiation and conciliation with the 
bosses, capitalists, and state bureaucrats. In the elections, we analyzed that 
the main intention of the broad front led by Lula and the PT had only to do with 
the defense of the bourgeois order of 1988. That its economic program would be a 
continuation of neoliberalism without solving structural problems, such as the 
concentration of land in the country. It is no coincidence that the Brazilian 
parliament, while urgently voting on the regime that reduces the budget for the 
people, seeks to criminalize the MST. The people are tired of crumbs. We have a 
world to destroy and another to build!

Build the General Strike!

For Land and Freedom!

Free Health and Education!

https://lutafob.org/9778/
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