Lula says that if he waits for authorization from the Treasury "we will never invest"

The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), stated this Thursday that, if he waits for a signal from the Ministry of Finance and Planning that there is money left, the country "will never invest".

"If I wait for my Finance people and my Planning people to say to me: 'look, there's money left over, let's put it into Education', we will never invest. Because there will never be any left over. Public money will never be left over", he said, at an event at Palácio do Planalto.

The statement comes days after the National Treasury released a report that projects increased fiscal pressure in the coming years and points out that the next government must adopt additional measures to ensure the sustainability of public accounts.

According to the document, the current fiscal framework alone will not be sufficient to ensure compliance with fiscal targets between 2028 and 2030.

The Treasury points out a structural challenge in public accounts: mandatory expenses are growing at a faster pace than the government's ability to make room in the budget. Spending on Social Security, BPC (Continuous Payment Benefit) and personnel are among those that increase the most.

Social Security spending is expected to rise from R$1.1 trillion to more than R$1.6 trillion, at constant values. This is an average real growth of 3.5% per year, driven both by the increase in the average value of benefits and by the expansion of the number of concessions.

In the case of BPC, progress is even more accelerated: expenditure is expected to jump from R$148 billion to R$255 billion in ten years, equivalent to real growth of 5.6% per year.

This increase in mandatory expenses, combined with constitutional obligations - such as health and education floors - and parliamentary amendments, reduces the budget's margin of flexibility.

According to the Treasury, the result is the gradual reduction of space for investments and other discretionary expenses, which tend to lose share in the budget over time.

During his speech this morning, the president also stated that the role of the State is to invest resources in projects that benefit the population.

"Good money is not money saved, it is money invested in works, education, health, railways, highways, waterways", he declared.

The statements contrast with the diagnosis presented by the National Treasury. In the report, the organization states that the increase in mandatory expenses tends to reduce the space for discretionary spending and public investments in the coming years, indicating that additional fiscal adjustments will be necessary to preserve the trajectory of public accounts.

During the event, Lula also commented on the restrictions imposed by the electoral calendar. According to the president, the government will no longer inaugurate works during the closure period provided for in the legislation, but he will continue to visit ongoing projects.

"Now we can't inaugurate anything else until the elections. Even though I can't inaugurate it, I'm going to visit many things that I still have to visit", he said.

The statements were made during an agenda in which the president once again defended state investment as an instrument of economic growth and job creation, reiterating that infrastructure works and public policies must remain a government priority, even in a scenario of fiscal restrictions.

Supervised by Felipe Pereira

Source: CNN