AND: Weekly Editorial – Contingency for whom?
We publish an unofficial translation of the article of A Nova Democracia of Brazil found on their webpage.
The new contingency of R$ 600 million, announced and detailed on 29th of September by the federal government, hits education harshly. This portfolio alone will block a value of R$ 165.7 million. The contingency – a euphemism for budget cuts – is already the second this year which affects education: the first, in August, had already blocked R$ 332 million. The total value blocked, since the beginning of the government, is R$ 497 million.
Luiz Inácio does not seem to remember his exuberant promises, so abundantly propagated throughout 2022. This is the impression, because, as far as Education is concerned, his actions contradict everything he has been saying: “Education is not an expense, it is an investment”.
But don’t worry, everyone! The government seems to have a good reason: “The new fiscal regime has replaced the spending cap, which says the same limits remain in place until 31st of December,” said the Federal Budget Secretary of the Ministry of Planning. So, basically, the government is cutting on education because the “new fiscal regime” orders it to cut spending to guarantee the fiscal surplus, a condition for continue to paying the amortization and interest from the public debt, a real assault by the imperialists on 51% of the nation’s budget. But, wait: was not the “new fiscal regime” proposed by the government itself to end the horrific “spending cap” that prevented precisely investments in education? Luiz Inácio seems to appreciate this saying: change everything, to keep everything as it has always been.
But Lula also seems to have forgotten his promises about the “agrarian reform”. Today, his government only reaches 10% of the goal of the settled families, a goal set by the government itself. Only 726 families were settled, compared to the 7,200 who received the promise to be settled. The budget to make the promise effective is even less encouraging than the credibility of the president: R$ 202 million is the amount for the “agrarian reform”, which does not even guarantee the compensation for a single latifundium.
Why so few money for the agrarian reform? Due to the “new fiscal regime”, proposed by the PT government, as a salvation of the Nation against the “spending cap”. Also in this, candidate Lula is paradise compared to the real Lula. On 1st of June of 2022, in the midst of the campaign in the south of the country, he criticized the lack of “agrarian reform” of previous governments and dismissed the argument of following the fiscal rules: “We have to ask ourselves how much it cost not to have done agrarian reform when everyone else did it,” he said, to the delight of the deluded.
Here it is worth pointing out the blatant lie that “everyone did the agrarian reform”, when in fact only the countries that are today imperialists did it when they established the democratic republic, while most of the oppressed countries by imperialism – such as Brazil – never did it and therefore were backward in history; facts that Lula knows, but that reside in his style of manipulation when he is making statements.
While the “contingency” takes away the scarce resources of public services and social policies that the government claims to defend, the truth is that for other sectors there is no problem with funds. The Ministry of Agriculture, for example, has not received – since the beginning of the year – any blocking of funds, quite the contrary. The reactionary Armed Forces, on the other hand, had a contingency of R$ 22 million, what is really few (4% of the blocked value of Education, check it out!). Perhaps, now, senior officers of the Armed Forces will be forced to serve sirloin and no more mingnon steak covered with twelve-year-old whiskey. It’s a shame, isn’t it?
While Luiz Inácio shows, day after day, that he has no intention of materializing his most essential campaign promises, the masses struggle and struggle. Against the dismantling of education, in September, students and professors from the State University of Minas Gerais, the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Maranhão carried out strikes and occupations, demanding resources and defending free public education with teeth and nails; teachers in the Goiás State public school system also paralyzed their activities. Despite the total paralysis of the fancy and bankrupt “agrarian reform” of the old State, the poor peasants of the Mãe Bernadette camp, in Carinhanha (southern Bahia), face the gunmen of the latifundium and the police troops that have joined them, to guarantee the possession of the land to those who live and work on it. This is how it goes the government of the reactionary coalition lead by the opportunism of this shameful “left”!
