COVID-19's federative confronting strategy in Vitória da Conquista (BA) region

Abstract

in Brazil, one of the reactions to the Covid-19 outbreak occurred in federative terms. States and Municipalities designed, with the National Legislative Houses, a strategy to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic crisis. This arrangement was materialized in Complementary Law (LC) No. 173/2020, which established the Federal Program to Confront Coronavirus. Two aspects stand out. The first is the delivery, by the Federal Government, of R$ 60 billion to subnational entities, whose purpose is to minimize the impacts of the economic downturn on public accounts. The second concerns relevant changes in the Brazilian fiscal standard. LC 173/2020, in principle valid exclusively for the 2020 financial year, expands the financial room for maneuver of public management, constrained since the beginning of the 2000s. Considering these aspects, this article analyzes the impacts of the federative program in the region of Vitória da Conquista (BA), whose municipalities will receive R$ 159.2 million on an emergency basis. Apart from calculating the resources delivered to the region by the Federal Government, it is also pointed out the amount of current revenues sterilized in the face of financial imbalances, which obliques local financial capabilities in terms of designing and executing public policies. Bearing in mind that today challenges reflect structural determinations of the national style of development, it is hoped that this analysis can support the guidelines of a debate that not only puts the region on a sustained development route, but, above all, allows it to overcome the limits that inhibit subnational governmental capacities.