Jair Bolsonaro takes a "red card" to his economic team

President Jair Bolsonaro and his Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, announce economic measures against the crisis derived from the pandemic, on April 1, 2020, in Brasilia.Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters

President Jair Bolsonaro has ruled out creating the Renta Brasil, a social distribution program that the government's economic team had conceived as a successor to the Bolsa Familia - created by former President Lula da Silva - when the emergency subsidy received by those affected is finished. due to the covid-19 pandemic.

It is another trip to Paulo Guedes, the last super minister to resist in office.

In a video posted on social media on Tuesday, the president said that whoever proposes to freeze pensions "has no heart."

Bolsonaro has thus refuted the information that several newspapers have published, coming from the Guedes economic team without the approval of the president.

“In my Government, until 2022, it is forbidden to pronounce the word Renta Brasil.

We will continue with the Bolsa Familia, period, "said Bolsonaro after reading a sequence of headlines in Brazilian newspapers that linked the creation of the program to the freezing of pensions and the review of subsidies for the elderly and people with disabilities in families with low income. income.

"We will never freeze the salaries of retirees and we will not reduce a penny in aid to the elderly and poor with disabilities."

Although Bolsonaro had ordered Paulo Guedes to create a program that would remain as a mark of his Government - thus erasing a heritage closely linked to the Workers' Party - the alternatives that the economic team has presented have not pleased the president, who has not hidden his dissatisfaction with Guedes.

The proposal would be to freeze pensions for two years, in addition to decoupling the readjustment of lower pensions from inflation and tightening the rules for granting subsidies to people with disabilities.

Bolsonaro has not denied that his economic team had considered these measures, but has reiterated that he had not accepted them.

In August, in an attempt to satisfy the president's desire to eliminate the Bolsa Familia and create the Renta Brasil with a higher value, Guedes considered the possibility of ending the salary bonus for those who earn up to two minimum wages, eliminating the Pharmacy program Popular —which subsidizes medicines considered essential— and revive an old tax on financial movements, as a way to stay within budget.

On that occasion, Bolsonaro refused to present the proposal to Congress and, repeating a phrase that he used again on Tuesday, said that he would not "take the money of the poor to give it to the poorest."

"Whoever proposes such a measure I can only get the red card.

They are people who do not have the slightest heart, they do not have the slightest understanding of how retirees live in Brazil ”, added the president.

Publicly, Guedes has tried to deny the attrition.

"The red card was not for me," he declared, adding that, in his opinion, "the president's reaction was political, correct."

However, his team continues to be attacked, mainly the special secretary Waldery Rodrigues, who in recent days has publicly defended ideas such as the freezing of the minimum wage as a way to make room in the budget for Income Brazil.

Hours before the video was published on social networks, Bolsonaro has called the economy minister urgently, according to

Neither the Government Palace nor the Ministry of Economy have disclosed the subject of the meeting, but at the end Bolsonaro has recorded the video from his office.

Paulo Guedes tries to stay in office while Brazil goes through unprecedented economic turbulence, which demands that the ultra-liberal team present proposals that increase state intervention in the economy.

The Brazil Income study has been carried out in parallel with the analysis of how to maintain the emergency subsidy, which was 110 dollars a month, but from this month, until December, it will be 55. This aid has become one of the pillars that sustain Bolsonaro's popularity, even amid the turbulent management of the health crisis that has killed more than 132,000 people in Brazil.

The Government had planned to present the Brazil Rent in January 2021, after the payment of the subsidy to those affected by the pandemic ended.

However, the government does not have sufficient funds for Brazil's Rent without breaking the spending ceiling rule, leaving Guedes in the middle of a nebulous political and economic chess.

GDP drop

Not even the news that emergency aid will continue until December has been able to stop the collapse of the Brazilian GDP: the historical fall of the second quarter suggests that this will be the worst recession that Brazil has ever experienced.

In addition, more than three million Brazilians lost their jobs between March and August as a result of the pandemic, and thousands of companies have closed their doors without seeing the money promised to small businesses, increasing the pressure on the minister and his administration. .

Although Guedes still retains his post, behind the scenes the stakes are increasing that he will be replaced by the Minister of Social Development, Rogério Marinho, who drew up the labor reform in the Michel Temer government and enjoys the support of the political class.