Priscilia Mazenotti, Marcos Chagas and Mariana Jungmann    Reporters Agência Brasil

Brasília - Brazil’s most recent constitution, promulgated in 1988, made significant advances in revenue sharing. The new constitution created a series of entitlements at various levels of government and in many sectors with the result that the federal government found its hands tied by mandatory outlays.

Brasilia responded by inventing the Disconnection of Union Revenue Act (“Desvinculação das Receitas da União - DRU”), which allows it to use, or rearrange the use of, 20% of revenue (that is to say, the budget) as it wishes.

The DRU was created in 1994 and has been approved annually since then. The present DRU expires next month on December 31.

The Dilma Rousseff administration has a constitutional amendment in congress that will allow it to extend the DRU for four years until 2015. The vote is seen as a test of the government’s congressional support.

Government leaders in congress plan extraordinary sessions in order to get the amendment passed (it should be law before December 20 when the budget for next year will be voted on). They say they expect the rank and file to vote for the DRU extension as the administration is busy releasing funds for earmarks. The vote will also be a measure of the depth of opposition to the government.

Meanwhile, the Senate Studies and Research Center has trotted out a paper by one of it residents, Fernando Alvares Correia Dias, showing that the DRU is “an alternative to a broad reform of public finances.” A broad reform of public finances being impossible to achieve in the present Congress.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Estudo diz que DRU é alternativa a ampla reforma nas finanças públicas

Link - Líder do governo apela à oposição para que não atrapalhe prorrogação da DRU

Link - Câmara fará sessões extraordinárias para votar DRU na próxima semana