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The package of Educational, Political, Environmental and Economic Reforms to free the market, improve scholarship, desobstruct and democratize the political system and conserve the environment, Senna Reforms or, more known as the Pacotaço were a series of educational, political, economic and environmental reforms that were at the center of President Ayrton Senna's domestic platform for the first two years of his administration. By changing the country's constitution, it had to be approved in both houses of the National Congress by an absolute majority.

The original text was delivered by the President of Brazil Ayrton Senna to the President of the Chamber of Deputies Rodrigo Maia on 20 February 2019 to initiate the legal rite. The reform proposal was approved by the Federal Senate on 22 October 2019, becoming law and coming into force automatically. The reforms, which were one of Senna's key proposals in his presidential campaign, were the largest package of reforms in the country's history since the military dictatorship, and were compared to the Base Reforms of João Goulart in the early 1960s.

Background
Since 2014, Brazil was facing a severe political, economic and societal crisis, that begun with President Dilma Rousseff's first year of her second term in office, and reached its apex with her impeachment in 2016. Vice President Michel Temer assumed the Presidency, implementing policies that contradicted the platform on which Rousseff's Workers Party had been elected, in one of the most controversial and heated political periods of modern Brazilian history. His administration was marked by constant battling between factions of the government, and fierce opposition from leftist movements and parties in Congress, and scandals of corruption and influence peddling. Ayrton Senna, then Senator for São Paulo since 2011, and known for being a maverick in Congress and for his anti-establishmentarianism and anti-corruption stances, and continued support for Operation Car Wash, as well as his status as a popular hero for his more than 60 wins in his Formula One career, made him gain enourmous popularity, and surge as the frontrunner for the 2018 general elections.



One of Ayrton Senna's key points of his presidential campaign was political and economic reforms, which he viewed as "vital" for the country's recovery from the crisis. The key reform he advocated was the political and educational ones, to "democratize Congress and desobstruct the political process", and to "improve the condition of our schools and remove poverty from its roots". Later on the campaign, he included the pension and tax reforms into his agenda, to free the market and modernize brazilian economy. Once elected, Senna proposed his Reforms on his acceptance speech, declaring "the days of political, economical, moral and societal stagnation are gone", and that Brazil needed "a very good mechanic to change its obsolete engines". Since the start of his term, Senna pushed for those reforms to be presented and voted on Congress.

Economic Reform
Economic Reform was one of Ayrton Senna's main points of his campaign. He repeatedly stated his support for "common-sense economics", in contrast to what he perceived as "unrestricted and poorly directioned public spending" of the Workers' Party's administrations. He vowed to cut taxes, to free the market, to curb bureaucracy and to "loose the ties" off of Brazil's economy. He defended, alongside his chief economic adviser and Minister of Economy Ricardo Paes de Barros, his so-called "Four Pit-Stops" to solve the crisis: fiscal responsibility, pension reform, tax reform, and technology innovation to boost productivity. His program draw criticism from many specialists, who considered it as "shallow". Former Minister and 2018 presidential candidate Ciro Gomes famously called Senna's programs "just a bunch of meaningless propositions delivered with a shell of exxagerated self-confidence". Senna, nonetheless, pushed for his reforms to be approved in Congress.

Pension Reform
After winning the elections with reformist proposals, and a so-called "third way" vision (although Senna himself disavowed that label]], Ayrton Senna had a great responsibility to approve the reforms, specially the economic reforms and the pension reform, knowing that if it failed, the country's pension system would collapse by the year 2021–2022, reaching an uncontrollable deficit. The government's economic team, led by Minister of Economy Ricardo Paes de Barros, predicted that without the reform, Brazil would have no scope for investment in all areas of government.

They also predicted that mandatory expenditures would consume 100% of the budget as early as 2022. Estimates made by the Ministry of Planning showed that expenditures that the government cannot cut (such as those with social security benefits, personnel, allowance and unemployment insurance) would jump from 91.8% in 2017 to 101.4% in 2022. That means the economic team would have no margin to make investments and would still need to cut the budget to be able to close their accounts. According to Planning projections, discretionary expenses (essentially investments), which are already small, would be reduced gradually. They would go from 8.2% in 2017 to 2.1% in 2021. By 2022, this percentage is negative, at 1.4%, in order to make room for mandatory expenditure.

Previous attempts
Until the reform was approved in 2019, other governments had tried to approve their proposals. In Brazil's most recent history, the country has been debating pension reform every ten years, in some cases the proposals have simply been shelved as extremely unpopular, in others, mini-reforms have been made, but with long-term null effects, and in one case, the reform was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies by only one vote.

Already in the 1990s, the first attempts at reform predicted that with the aging of the Brazilian population over the next 20 years, the current pension system would become unsustainable, and this has proven true in recent years, with the deficit rising each year.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso
The first president to try to reform Brazil's pension system was Fernando Henrique Cardoso in the year 1995, when he presented his proposal to amend the Constitution. The bill was only approved by Congress three years later, resulting in a very dehydrated reform that had almost no long-term impacts.

Its main point was the minimum retirement ages of 55 years for women and 60 for men. As the first attempt in the country's history, the measure was extremely unpopular, and difficult to pass. Brazil's constitution says any amendment must be approved by an absolute majority in both houses, 308 votes in the Chamber of Deputies and 49 votes in the Senate. The main point of the proposal was rejected on the night of 6 May 1998 by the House by only one vote, the deputy Antonio Kandir of the ruling party PSDB, wrongly voted in abstention, causing the defeat of the government and the proposal.

At the end of the process, Fernando Henrique only passed a law that set minimum ages of 48 (women) and 53 (men) for federal servants to retire.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
In Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration, there was a change in social security rules, centered on federal servants. A constitutional amendment restricted the possibility of full retirement to those who entered their careers until 2003. Those who joined after that had their benefits calculated according to the average of their contribution to Social Security. Retired servers now have an 11% discount. Minimum ages increased to 55 years (women) and 60 years (men).

Dilma Rousseff
For the first time, the private sector workers were hit in 2015 under the Dilma Rousseff government, with the rule known as 85/95. The standard grants full retirement to workers who, summing the contribution time and age, achieve a score equal to or greater than 85 points (for women) and 95 points (for men). The sum is progressive and currently stands at 86/96 points. Dilma also implemented Funpresp, a federal servant's supplementary social security fund, in 2013. Those who started their careers after Funpresp have their retirement limited to the INSS ceiling (R$5,839.45), with the option to contribute to the complementary fund.

Michel Temer
With the worsening of public accounts and the widening Social Security deficit, the Michel Temer government presented a broad reform proposal in December 2016. The articulation, however, sank in the face of complaints against the now former president.

Political Reform
Another one of Senna's signature proposals were all-encompassing political reforms.