In response to S&P, Levy reaffirms intention to achieve primary surplus
Finance minister, Joaquim Levy, 
Finance Minister Joaquim Levy announced in a statement that the government reaffirms its commitment to fiscal consolidation and that the 2016 budget proposal—submitted to Congress forecasting a primary deficit of $8.36 billion—, demand valuable discipline in discretionary spending (more flexible) and management efforts to reduce mandatory spending.
The minister has stated again the intention to pursue the previous primary surplus target for 2016 in response to Standard & Poor's (S & P) decision to lower Brazil's credit rating from BBB- to BB+, with negative outlook, announced on Wednesday (Sep. 9).
Minister of Planning, Budget and Management, Nelson Barbosa, in turn, said the loss of Brazil's investment-grade rating does not deviate the Brazilian economy from the recovery path.
According to him, the government continues to honor all commitments and agreements and will continue working to lower costs and generate revenue.
Senate President Renan Calheiros stated that only by resuming economic growth, it would be possible to reverse the situation. The government leader in the Senate, Delcídio Amaral, said that "credit rating agencies commit error" and that the S&P decision is not "the end of the world". In his opinion, the government "has all the conditions" to implement the reforms needed for Brazil to resume growth.
In the Chamber of Deputies, congressman Carlos Sampaio, leader of the largest opposition party the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), said Brazil's downgrade was an announced tragedy. "President Rousseff simply ignored all the alerts from opposition parties and experts for the crisis aggravation. She posed arrogantly and preferred to look for the guilty ones, rather than proposing solutions. The loss of investment-grade rating crowns the failure of a government that doesn't have an economic policy, nor direction and is hopeless. "
For the government leader in the Chamber of Deputies, congressman José Guimarães, "even with the downgrade, [investment-grade] is even higher than at the beginning of Lula's government [in 2003] and much higher than in the previous government."
PSDB's national president, Senator Aécio Neves, Rousseff's main opponent of in the last presidential campaign, said the loss of investment-grade rating resulted from a sequence of mistakes for establishing the economic policy. "Unfortunately, the outlook revision to negative for the next twelve months shows that President Dilma's government is over," he sentenced.
Translated by Amarílis Anchieta
Fonte: In response to S&P, Levy reaffirms intention to achieve primary surplus
