The dismantling of the executive branchs budget toolbox and the control of the budget by the National Congress by Rodrigo Oliveira de Faria published by SciELO (4/2022)
The main objective of this article is to discuss the results and consequences of the broad budget reform process that took place in the last decade, which aimed to reduce the high levels of discretion of the Executive Branch and introduce equal treatment of parliamentarians, in relation to their amendments, prohibiting the political use for the release of funds. The results of the redesign of budgetary institutions signal, however, to the that the central purposes of the normative changes were not only not achieved, but reversed, from the broad control of the budget assumed by the National Congress, indicating emblematic limitations in the institutional reengineering. The consequences of the change in the budgetary constitutional order of 1988 were the significant reduction of the Executive’s discretion, the increase of the National Congress’ control in budgetary matters, the expansion of the discretion within the Legislative, the transfer of presidential prerogatives to the budget´s general-rapporteur and the explosion of general-rapporteur´s amendments, with the emblematic reversal of equal treatment, indicating relevant cracks in the budget reconfiguration. The research methodology is qualitative, based on the extensive documentation of the processing of annual budget bills and budget guidelines bills available on the websites of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, as well as in the approved laws themselves (LOA and LDO). In addition, empirical data are used to support part of the conclusions reached in the study.
The redesign of budget institutions and the explosion of rapporteur-general amendments RP-9: the budget process at the heart of the political crisis by Rodrigo Oliveira de Faria published by Science (8/2022).
This article discusses the redesign of budgetary rules that led to the explosion of the rapporteur-general´s amendments and led to a reconfiguration of the balance of forces between the Executive and the Legislature in the Brazilian budgetary framework. Its main objective is to investigate the budgetary gear that allowed to assign to such amendments the contours they have today, decomposing the elements that integrate this operative mechanics, their causes and consequences. The intensive modification of the legal contours of the budgetary allocation process established in the Political Charter of 1988, arising from the conjunction of three major flows of normative changes (regimental, infra-constitutional and constitutional), requires and demands systematic studies that contribute to the expansion of the understanding of such phenomena that directly affect the functioning of Brazilian democratic institutions. This, too, is one of the purposes of the article. The research methodology is qualitative, based on the extensive documentation of the processing of annual budget bills and budget guidelines bills available on the websites of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate. In addition, the rules of the National Congress that regulate the operation of the Joint Commission on Public Budget are used and, in a complementary way, data available in the Integrated Planning and Budget System are used.
