Participation, education
* Brazil Open government and radical which survived have been cut by 33%.
The federal government has also policies have made the transferred responsibility for traffic Workers Party municipal control and taxation to the municipalities, government in Porto Allegre a but not the lucrative sector of vehicle success story within Brazil. inspection and licensing, which it intends Mayor Raul Pont made the to privatise.
Despite these problems Porto Allegre following report to the neigh- is one of the few Brazilian cities with a bourhood meetings which are balanced budget. This has enabled the now preparing the year 2000 municipality to borrow money on the open market to finance essential programmes. participatory budget.
As with every other area of the municipal
The solid support of the population budget, the terms and conditions of these has enabled the Workers Party (PT) loans are transparent, and have been administration of Porto Allegre to reform approved by the population. taxation, and win a greater share of tax District-level discussions on the 2000 revenues collected by the state budget have already started. According to government. The result has been a 300% Pont, "we won't be able to satisfy the population's demands unless we confront increase in the city budget since Olivio Dutra became the first PT mayor of Porto the central thesis of the federal governAllegre in 1989. ment and its neoliberal policies: cutting
Direct income now represents over social costs, reducing the number of civil half the city budget. The tax collection servants, and cutting their wages. rate is 88%, one of the highest rates in In ten years of our participatory Brazil's major cities. budget, we have never heard the popula-
The problem is that Brazil's federal tion call for or suggest a reduction in the government takes 56% of the total tax number of civil servants. On the contrary, 'pie," and the state takes 27%. This leaves at each assembly we hear calls for more Porto Allegre with only 17% of the total professionals; more doctors, nurses, taxation paid by residents and companies teachers and social workers. More in the town. professionals to work in and expand our health centres, and to staff the new Transfer of services schools which the participatory budget
As it applies the IMF programme, the federal government is transferring some Of course, we are committed to services to the states and municipalities. maintain our policy of inflation-prooting Though normally without transferring the the salaries of public servants, to protect necessary resources. The responsibility their buying power, and prevent them for health care has been transferred to the becoming victims of inflation. municipalities but the Federal Govern- It is still possible to increase our ment has ignored its promise to increase resources. The town hall must work its transfer payment accordingly. Porto together with the participatory budget Allegre's health budget has not inc- system to impulse a new discussion of reased, despite the growing number of the municipal rates (a tax based on patients, including a growing number property values). In 1997, against the from less fortunate parts of the state. lo will of the participatory budget delegates, make matters worse, the federal and state town counsellors who supported the authorities have transferred hundreds of federal government refused to approve health care workers out of the services the modernisation of this tax which the which are being municipalised. executive had presented, in response to a
In the education field, the municipa- clear demand from the participatory lity now shoulders the entire burden of budget delegates. preschool services. But all these changes will be insuffi-
At the beginning of 1999 the federal cient if we do not change the federal government suspended its programme government's economic model of financing housing and public hygiene. recession and total submission to the According to Pont, "popular pressure on IMF and the major banks. Without the federal government would make it economic growth, there will be no new possible to reverse this tendency." jobs, and no new resources. The model
Despite the clear demand of the parti- must be changed. Not just for these cipatory budget for increased social reasons, but also because the hidden services, and anti-poverty programmes, consequence of recession is that all the the federal government has abandoned disposable resources of the federal this sector. The few federal programmes administration are not redistributed in the 22 International Viewpoint #312 June 1999
RIC bu po pa ha tio The ge der ter form of public works and services, but rar used to enrich the world's richest suk speculators, through payment of interest cor on the state debt. A policy clearly to the T detriment of the Brazilian people. cor
This is not the only possible policy. It of is possible to have a federal government in which has a balanced budget, like we we have here in Porto Allegre. It is possible sev to have a federal government with a spil wages policy, with the ability to invest. A of federal government which does not in relinquish its tax income through excep- res tions and tax breaks of all kinds, but CUI which assembles the necessary resources "Tr to implement the democratic decision of ren the community. in
Building this new model means closing ranks in the struggle for national aut soverignty, against subordination to the Co foreign debt, and in favour of policies of Cos income generation, employment, defence to of the domestic market. A truly sovereign ma government. Not like the current federal Ma administration. ma
It is not true that taxes in Brazil are pro excessively high. The total tax burden is the about 30%—in some European countries ba: it exceeds 40%. And in Brazil, the tax ob base is extremely unjust. The richest pay au nothing, or very little. Most taxes are on ob: consumption, rather than income, wealth, capital or inheritance. To make matters inc worse, the federal government has TIO encouraged the states into a tax war, each org promising greater and greater tax reductions. Thus is yet another way of trans- th ferring resources from the population to the major companies.
As we begin debate on the 2000 budget, the town hall calls on all citizens to join the struggle to increase the share of public resources which are administered by the municipalities. This is the best way to guarantee that our demands for public works and services will be met. and to begin to change this unjust economic model which is leading the country into recession and unemployment. * * Excerpt from the municipality's letter distributed to participants in the first round of local participatory budget meetings.
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