The polity that is Brazil

Yet perhaps the biggest reason spending is high is that the constitution requires it. The charter mandates an extraordinary 90% of all federal spending. Notably it ties most public pensions to wage growth, and requires health and education spending to rise in line with revenue growth. If Brazil were to end most tax exemptions and undo these two policies, its debt-to-gdp ratio, which is already above 90%, would be almost 20 percentage points lower by 2034 than it would be without any reform, reckons the IMF. To deal with all this, what is really needed is to amend the constitution.

High spending and a tangle of subsidised credit schemes also reduce the effectiveness of monetary policy. That means the central bank must increase rates even higher to control inflation. Brazil’s real interest rate of 10% is among the highest in the world. Such rates cripple investment and drag down growth, while well-connected businessmen can get their hands on artificially cheap rates.

Among those who must pay the full rate is the government itself.

And:

Tax exemptions total 7% of gdp, up from 2% in 2003 (see chart 2). Dozens of sectors receive tax breaks or credit subsidies on the basis that they are national champions, or from “temporary” help that has never ended. Brazil’s courts cost 1.3% of gdp, making them the second-most expensive in the world, with much of that going on cushy pensions and perks. Some $15bn a year, or 78% of the military budget, is spent on pensions and salaries. The United States spends just one-quarter of the defence budget on personnel.

Here is more from The Economist.