The Michel Temer government deepens the neoliberal model in Brazil with its fiscal adjustment policies to ensure the primary surplus that benefits the financial system by setting the ceiling for public spending for 20 years, which means “freezing” spending on education, health, infrastructure, etc. compromising the development of the Country, social pension reform that, in practice, will make workers to pay to have a retirement that will not enjoy in life, a labor reform that contemplates the flexibilization of labor laws that will benefit the bosses to the detriment of workers and, finally, the privatization of state-owned enterprises and the public service in general. All this is being done on the basis of the false argument that it is necessary to create the necessary conditions to promote the development of Brazil.

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THE NEOLIBERAL OFFENSIVE OF MICHEL TEMER GOVERNMENT
Fernando Alcoforado *
Neoliberalism has as basic principles: 1) minimal participation of the State in the
direction of the national economy; 2) privatization of state-owned enterprises; 3) no
government intervention in the labor market; 4) free movement of international capital
and emphasis on globalization; 5) opening of the economy to the entry of
multinationals; 5) against economic protectionism; 6) de-bureaucratization of the State
through the adoption of simpler economic laws and regulations to facilitate the
functioning of the economy; 7) decreasing the size of the State to make it more
efficient; 8) non-interference by the State in the prices of products and services that
must be determined by the market on the basis of the law of supply and demand; 9)
control of inflation by the State through monetary policies based on inflation targets;
10) adoption by the State of floating exchange rate policy; And, 11) obtaining a fiscal
surplus for the payment of public debt. Almost every country in the world joined
voluntarily or under coercive pressure to neoliberalism from the 1990s.
The practice has demonstrated the unfeasibility of the neoliberal economic model in
Brazil inaugurated by President Fernando Collor in 1990 and maintained by Presidents
Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula and Dilma Rousseff. The low
economic growth of Brazil and the excessive increase of the federal public debt during
the FHC, Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments demonstrate the unfeasibility of the
neoliberal model implanted in the Country. Not only did FHC leave a compromising
economic legacy of the development of Brazil. Lula and Dilma Roussef are also
responsible for this situation because they were not able to adopt an economic model
that would contribute effectively to Brazil's economic and social progress.
The Michel Temer government deepens the neoliberal model in Brazil with its fiscal
adjustment policies to ensure the primary surplus that benefits the financial system by
setting the ceiling for public spending for 20 years, which means “freezing” spending
on education, health, infrastructure, etc. compromising the development of the Country,
social pension reform that, in practice, will make workers to pay to have a retirement
that will not enjoy in life, a labor reform that contemplates the flexibilization of labor
laws that will benefit the bosses to the detriment of workers and, finally, the
privatization of state-owned enterprises and the public service in general. All this is
being done on the basis of the false argument that it is necessary to create the necessary
conditions to promote the development of Brazil.
Regarding the social pension reform, it should be noted that Revenue Auditors (Anfip)
affirm that the deficit is a fallacy. The auditors of Anfip do not go so far as to say that
Social Pension is a surplus. What they defend is that one cannot look at social pension
accounts separately. The correct position, they say, is to analyze the budget of all Social
Security - which includes, in addition to pensions and retirement, the health and social
assistance areas, as established in the 1988 Constitution. Expenses, ranging from the
SUS to Bolsa Família program of income transfer. On the other hand, revenues are also
much higher, because they include social contributions created to finance the entire
Security, such as CSLL, PIS / Pasep and Cofins. The balance of this accounting is
positive, at least for now. In 2015, Social Security had a surplus of R$ 20 billion,
according to economist Denise Lobato Gentil of the Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro (UFRJ), who defended a doctoral thesis on the subject in 2006 entitled "A Fiscal
policy and the false Brazilian Social Pension crisis".

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In turn, the Labor Reform aims to consolidate even more the relationship of the worker
to the needs of the companies, which dictate if they prefer temporary jobs, exhaustive
exercise of 12 hours of work, hour’s bank and smaller hours of work submitted to lower
wages. The worker is subject to flexibilization, lack of security, among other
consequences. In other words, there will be a greater precariousness of labor relations
with the Labor Reform of the Michel Temer government. With the Labor Reform,
measures are adopted that will deepen even more the outsourcing, the precariousness of
work, with a 12-hour day formalized and the extension of temporary employment
contract, loss of legal bases for agreements with categories of work, prevailing
agreements with Unions and workers' entities to the detriment of what is established by
law and the establishment of a model of labor contract based on productivity, to the
detriment of the journey of working.
One of the main changes of the Labor Reform concerns the journey of working. With
the proposal, the work of 12 consecutive hours is regulated. It's eight hours of work plus
four overtime hours. In the week, the limit of the number of hours also increases, to 48
hours, being 44 plus four overtime hours. Temporary work, previously regulated in 90
days, will be 120 days and may be extended. With this, it can increase the number of
precarious jobs and some, which were not considered temporary, become, with the
relaxation of relations. Regarding the agreements with the employers, now, the
negotiated becomes worth more than the legislated.
The rush of Michel Temer government to urgently submit the proposals for Pension
Reform and Labor Reform are part of the attempt to impose structural changes in the
living conditions of workers. The package of evils is extensive, ranging from the
limitation of spending in fundamental areas for 20 years, such as health and education,
through Project of amendment to the Constitution - PEC 55, in addition to the reforms
of Social Security and Labor. They are not just punctual changes, even if they are
presented in sliced forms. The proposal of the Michel Temer government for Brazil is to
play the account of the crisis in the back of the workers. One of the first steps of this
macabre plan is to prevent the worker from enjoying retirement in life and to deepen the
precariousness of labor relations.
The neo-liberal offensive of the Michel Temer government aims to put into practice
what the governments that preceded it failed to achieve in full. Michel Temer wants to
restore the program of the 1990s in the new historical conditions that were created after
the neoliberal reformism implemented by the PT (Workers Party) during the Lula and
Dilma Rousseff governments. Fiscal adjustment, the abandonment of social policies and
the privatization policy are part of this process. In addition to attacking the population
with its antisocial policies, the Michel Temer government compromises the country's
future with its recessive economic policy that favors only the bankers. Favoring the
bankers results from the fact that the economic team led by Henrique Meirelles, the
current finance minister, has strong representation of the bankers.
The fact that almost half of the Union's budget is destined to pay interest and
amortizations of domestic and foreign debts with a tendency to grow in the coming
years will result in the increasing incapacity of the Brazilian government at all levels
(federal, state and municipal) to invest in solving the problems of economic and social
infrastructure and to promote the country's development. It is unacceptable that the
largest expenditures of the Brazilian government are those related to interest and
amortizations of the internal public debt that corresponds to about 45% of the budget of

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the Union, benefiting the financial system, while spending on social pension is 23% of
the budget and with transfers to States and Municipalities corresponds 10% of the
budget.
* Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável-
Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do
Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social
(Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática
Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015) and As Grandes Revoluções Científicas,
Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016).