Brazilian students continue protesting against gov't spending cap

Brazilian students on Wednesday continued to protest against a proposed government spending cap.

Over 1,000 schools and universities across Brazil were occupied by students protesting against the proposed bill, which would restrict budget increases to the inflation rate for the next 20 years.

Protesters said the measure will hurt government investment in public education and other key sectors such as healthcare, housing and sanitation.

The bill was approved in the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening. It will now head to the Senate to be voted in December.

By staging demonstrations, Brazilian students hope to put pressure on the Senate to block the bill, though it seems unlikely, given how easily it was passed in the House and the strength of the government's coalition in the Senate.

The government, which proposed the bill, said it is essential to restore Brazil's fiscal balance.

Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles on Tuesday said that the proposed cap has already helped boost the Brazilian economy and urged lawmakers not to reduce the 20-year duration of the measure because a shorter period would not effectively curb spending.

However, critics of the bill say that in the past decade, government spending on healthcare and education rose by much more than the inflation rate, as did the minimum wage, and that helped shrink Brazil's historic wealth gap.

In fact, the minimum wage raises and the larger investments in education are regarded as one of the main reasons why the government has successfully lifted millions of people out of extreme poverty, along with minimum wage benefits.

With the spending cap, there is a strong concern that much of the progress made in the past decade will be undone. Endi