{"id":29041,"date":"2016-05-21T04:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-21T07:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=29041"},"modified":"2016-05-26T14:18:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T17:18:24","slug":"new-ministers-issue-severe-cuts-to-key-social-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=29041","title":{"rendered":"New Ministers Issue Severe Cuts to Key Social Programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In their first week in office, newly appointed ministers<\/a> under interim President Michel Temer announced sweeping policy changes. These announcements included considerable cuts to social policies aimed at assisting low-income Brazilians, striking devastating blows to hallmark programs of Luiz In\u00e1cio “Lula” da Silva and Dilma Rousseff\u2019s administrations.<\/p>\n

Minha Casa Minha Vida<\/h3>\n

Minister of Cities Bruno Ara\u00fajo, appointed by acting President Temer last Thursday, announced early this week that he had revoked<\/a> an ordinance authorizing the expansion of\u00a0Minha Casa Minha Vida-Entidades program (MCMV-En)<\/a>, a complementary program of the Minha Casa Minha Vida<\/a> program. The expansion sought to secure funding for the construction of 11,250 units for self-organized social movements that had requested housing assistance from the federal government. The measure had only been authorized on May 11, one day before the Senate voted to suspend President Rousseff from office, leaving it in a precarious position with President Temer\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

Ara\u00fajo cited the gravity of the economic crisis as the principal motivation for the cuts, explaining<\/a>, \u201cthere are many bureaucratic as well as ideological limits that need resolving so that we can do more with less.”\u00a0The Entidades program, while funded through Minha Casa Minha Vida, subsidizes initiatives (often cooperatives or occupations) rather than individuals, and has been heralded as a model for participatory housing solutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, on Friday, Temer declared an end to any new contracts for general Minha Casa Minha Vida housing, putting an end to 2 million new homes<\/a> that had been set to be built by the Rousseff government by 2018.<\/p>\n

Minha Casa Minha Vida is the largest federal housing initiative in Brazilian history, subsidizing the construction of over 2.6 million low-income housing units since 2009. It is also closely associated with the Workers\u2019 Party (PT), as both President Lula and President Rousseff upheld the program as a testament to their commitment to providing housing for the working poor.<\/p>\n

Growth Acceleration Program (PAC)<\/h3>\n

Reorganization within the Planning Ministry this week has also raised questions about the fate of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC)<\/a>. The new Planning Minister, Romero Juca, announced Tuesday that the PAC Department has been terminated, merging it\u00a0instead with the Department of Development and Infrastructure.<\/p>\n

While Temer\u2019s administration has refused to say whether this move is part of\u00a0a plan to discontinue the program, President Temer did announce the creation of a new infrastrucuture initiative, the Growth, Employment and Income Generation Program<\/a>, known as \u201cCrescer\u201d (Grow). Reports suggest that Crescer differs from PAC in its prioritization of formal sector jobs created with each project. It is unclear at this time whether infrastructure projects slated to receive PAC funds will be funded through Crescer. Temer also announced the creation of the Investment Partnerships Program (PPI)<\/a>, which aims to facilitate private sector investment in public works projects.<\/p>\n

Bolsa Fam\u00edlia<\/h3>\n

Following the fusion of Ministries of Social Development and Agrarian Development into what is now the Ministry of Social and Agrarian Development, the new minister, Osmar Terra, announced that the welfare program Bolsa Fam\u00edlia<\/a> would be cut by 10%<\/a>. Approximately 13.9 million<\/a> families currently benefit from Bolsa Fam\u00edlia, making it the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world.<\/p>\n

Human Rights and Culture<\/h3>\n

Alexandre de Moraes, the new Minister of Justice and Citizenship, created through the fusion of the Ministry of Justice with the Ministry of Women, Racial Equality, Youth and Human Rights, has pledged to consider forced repossession without the need for a court order<\/a> as a way to evict urban occupations from public buildings. Moraes has previously called the actions of social movements “guerrilla warfare<\/a>” and\u00a0as Security Secretary in S\u00e3o Paulo, Moraes was accused of using police violence to suppress demonstrations and concealing crime data.<\/p>\n

Further controversies in the last week include the dissolution\u00a0of the Ministry of Culture, integrated into the Ministry of Education, which has caused widespread protests<\/a> amongst artists, musicians and cultural producers. The new Education Minister, Mendon\u00e7o Filho, had indicated introducing\u00a0tuition fees for public universities but later denied this move<\/a>. Similarly, the new Health Minister, Ricardo Barros, gave an interview<\/a> in which he said that there “weren’t the resources to maintain” the public health system<\/a>. He has since confirmed<\/a> that there won’t be cuts to the service, but\u00a0that it needs to be “managed better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas In their first week in office, newly appointed ministers under interim President Michel Temer announced sweeping policy changes. These announcements included considerable cuts to social policies aimed at assisting low-income Brazilians, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":29043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1854,335,1329],"tags":[697,504,698,205,107,282,2012,1071,157,296,18,130,924,868],"writer":[1304],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-housingwatch","8":"category-policies","9":"category-by-international-observers","10":"tag-bolsa-familia","11":"tag-culture","12":"tag-federal-government","13":"tag-growth-acceleration-program-pac","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-housing","16":"tag-impeachment","17":"tag-minha-casa-minha-vida-entidades","18":"tag-minha-casa-minha-vida","19":"tag-occupation","20":"tag-protest","21":"tag-social-movements","22":"tag-sus","23":"tag-welfare","24":"writer-meg-healy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29041"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=29041"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=29041"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=29041"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=29041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}