Is Luiz Mandetta afraid to stand up to Paulo Guedes?

The lack of urban health infrastructure requires large amounts of public spending. The budgetary schemes that Paulo Guedes is putting together to combat the coronavirus are barely enough. Money is tight, less than R$ 150 billion. Millions of people affected, acknowledges Minister Luis Henrique Mandetta, will simultaneously put pressure on Brazil's already deficient health infrastructure. Collapse is inevitable.

Given this situation of clear healthcare shortages, will the government continue talking about saving money and implementing fiscal adjustments, as the people at the Ministry of Finance want?

Or will the country urgently order hospitals from China that can be assembled and disassembled, as the Chinese have developed? Wouldn't this be an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: guaranteeing hospitals and healthcare professionals for the people on the one hand, and grain exports to the Chinese on the other, deepening bilateral trade?

Will fiscal adjustment dominate the narrative regarding the urgent need for government intervention to address social needs?

Where will the money come from?

Minister Mandetta did not delve into the debate to the point of discussing where it will be necessary to find money to address social needs before satisfying market interests, as is currently happening.

Will the government continue to prioritize the financial sector in budget spending while resources for social sectors dwindle?

As if apologizing to Guedes, Mandetta, faced with the dramatic situation in the health sector, said he will act responsibly regarding financial matters. What does this mean?

Should we align ourselves with the demands of Guedes, who works for the market, or with those of the population, which doesn't want questions but objective answers that require increased spending?

The crucial moment has therefore arrived to discuss the biggest bottleneck in the economy: the freezing of social spending for 20 years and the constitutional mandate, as an entrenched clause, to guarantee payment of debt service, while all other social categories are demanding renegotiations of their debts.