If the measures currently being voted on in the National Congress are approved, it will signify the end of the 1988 Federal Constitution and the elimination of the social rights enshrined within it. The country’s Magna Carta, widely discussed and approved in a constituent process which marked the end of the 1964-1985 civil/military dictatorship, consecrates the rights that govern Brazil today, as well as the resources that finance them, including the public health system (or SUS), state-funded education and social security, which is accessible to all Brazilians.
Constitutional Amendment Bill number 241 (Projeto de Emenda Constitucional: PEC 241), which is currently under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies and has been positioned as an agenda priority for the Temer government, will dismantle the country’s social policy. The PEC proposes to freeze social spending over the next 20 years and will primarily affect health and education policies.
A study by the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Economic Studies (Departamento Intersindical de Estatística e Estudos Socioeconômicos: DIEESE) demonstrates that, had the PEC been in force over the last 10 years, we would have spent 47% less on education and 26% less on health: with R$ 384 billion less investment in education and R$ 290 billion less in health.
The PEC will make the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde: SUS) unfeasible, as well as making it impossible to guarantee, maintain and improve state-funded education. In the case of social security, it will make the minimum benefit, which under the Constitution is set at one minimum salary, unfeasible.
In practice, the PEC will oblige Brazilian citizens to pay for private health plans/insurance and students to pay, for example, for their university studies. Health and education will gradually stop being public and will be transferred to the private sector; the largest social programme in Brazil since 1988, that of social security, will be seriously damaged, and will particularly affect the poorest and the younger generation.
As well as signifying setbacks and the loss of rights, the fact is that this PEC is based on a totally fallacious argument: contrary to what has been disseminated by the Temer Government and the mass media, it will not resolve the country’s public accounts problem and many alternatives have been presented which they refuse to even consider. Currently, the highest level of public spending is on the public debt and its interest payments. In 2015, for example, around R$ 100 billion each was spent on health and education, while interest payments were R$ 500 billion. The PEC has nothing to say about this expenditure. Neither does it discuss alternative taxes to increase revenue – progressive taxes, taxation on large fortunes, the effective regulation of the financial system. In other words, the aim of this constitutional amendment is to withdraw resources, essential for the poorest people, from the social arena, while leaving the large groups, in which Brazil’s wealth is concentrated, untouched.
For this reason, in defence of the Constitution, in defence of the rights guaranteed under this Constitution, we add our voice to all the voices protesting against this Constitutional Amendment and commit ourselves to joining forces with other sectors of society in the fight against it.
Health yes, interest payments no!
Education yes, interest payments no!
Social Security yes, interest payments no!
Brazil, 10 October 2016
ABONG – Organizations in Defence of Rights and Common Goods