Brazil's Flavio Bolsonaro Pledges 200 Billion-Real Fiscal Adjustment Without Touching Social Spending Ahead of Oct. 25 Runoff
Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro said on Friday that if elected president he would deliver a 200 billion-real ($39.49 billion) fiscal adjustment in the federal budget without touching politically sensitive social spending commitments, Reuters reported on October 17. In an interview with TV Globo's Jornal Nacional, Brazil's most-watched newscast, he rejected media reports that his campaign was considering cuts to social benefits. Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, faces leftist incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a runoff on October 25 and currently leads in the polls.
Bolsonaro said the adjustment would instead come from eliminating ministries, tackling mismanagement at state-controlled firms and monetizing federal real estate assets. He dismissed proposals attributed to his campaign to halt real increases in the minimum wage, eliminate automatic adjustments for social benefits or reduce mandatory social expenditures, and said he would not seek to reverse a constitutional amendment approved on Wednesday shortening Brazil's working week from six days to five. "There has been a lot of fake news circulating, and this is an important moment to set the record straight," he said.
Fiscal policy is a central issue in the runoff. Brazil's gross public debt has risen more than 10 percentage points during Lula's current term, to 82.9 percent of GDP. Bolsonaro finished the first round ahead of the incumbent, 47 percent to 45 percent, and long-term interest rates have fallen since, reflecting investor optimism about a possible change of government. Both campaigns have stuck to voter-friendly fiscal proposals in the final stretch, and analysts say measures addressing the structural drivers of the debt are unlikely to surface until after the election. (GSM, based on Reuters reporting)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：巴西利亚的巴西国会大厦（资料照片）。图片来源：Wikimedia Commons，Cayambe 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0。Photo: The National Congress buildings in Brasilia (file photo). Source: Wikimedia Commons, by Cayambe, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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