[NYTr] Brazil: Lula Responds to Criticisms on Social Spending

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Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com


Brazil: Lula Responds to Criticisms on Social Spending

Brasilia, Sept 3 (Prensa Latina) Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva replied to critics in the opposition on Monday, saying that
resources must be seen as an investment.

Lula said on Radio Brazil that he is not angry by media criticisms,
according to which the government's expenditures will grow more than
the Gross Domestic Product.

"It does not make me angry because the money invested in the social area
will result in fewer young criminals, less unemployment, and fewer
deaths due to insufficient medical care," he said.

In fact, we are not spending, we are investing in human beings, in
improving the people's quality of life, in their possibility to grow,
Lula pointed out.

The Brazilian president added that this investment in society would
continue, because for 500 years, this country worked to increase
inequality and now we have to work to reduce it.

The criticisms by the opposition came when they learned that next
year's General Budget of the Union would allocate more than 36.45
billion dollars to the social area.

That money accounts for a 16.6-percent increase compared to this year's
expenditures in the social sector, which totaled more than 31.25
billion dollars.

He recalled that the 2008 budget would allocate 26.23 percent more to
social development and hunger eradication, and 17.30 percent more to
rent distribution among the poor.

Some people want that money to be spent in roads, ports and airports,
but it is more important to feed those who need it than to invest in
infrastructure, Lula said.

The president recalled that that the number of Brazilians living under
extreme poverty has dropped from 8.8 to 4.2 percent, and the country's
poverty rate has decreased from 52 to 38 percent during his term.

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