Former Finance Minister Maílson da Nóbrega criticized President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s speeches against the spending ceiling, a constitutional rule that limits government spending to inflation.
“The market is reacting to President Lula’s statements, for example, who said that the spending cap is stupid. I think, with all due respect, how stupid it is to say that the spending ceiling is stupid”, said the economist in an interview with CNN this Wednesday (4).
“(The ceiling) is a sensible measure, it has problems, it needs to be updated, but it was a fundamental measure to stop the explosive trajectory of the public debt that would take us to a serious situation of inflation”, he completes.
Lula’s speech about the spending ceiling was made on Sunday (1st), in a speech at the inauguration in Congress, where he defended the repeal of the rule.
“SUS is probably the most democratic of the institutions created by the 1988 Constitution. That is certainly why it has been the most persecuted since then, and it was also the most harmed by a stupidity called a spending ceiling, which we will have to revoke”, he defended in the National Congress this Sunday afternoon (1st).
Mailson also criticized recent speeches by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, who called the interest rate currently practiced in Brazil “anomalous” and out of purpose.
“Yesterday, he (Haddad) slipped, saying that the interest rate is at an inappropriate level. When monetary policy is institutionalized, it has rules, as is the case in Brazil – also because the Central Bank is now independent -, the decision on the rate is made by a collegiate, based on studies, market opinions and so on. You cannot arrive now as Minister of Finance and start making a guess. It is a golden rule that the Minister of Finance and the President of the Republic do not talk about interest rates. Even less in the vicinity of the next Copom decision,” he said.
*In update
Source: CNN Brasil
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