Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff issued a decree late on Friday cutting the federal government’s discretionary spending limit for the January-to-March period by a third as her government continues to work on a comprehensive austerity plan, Reuters reported. Rousseff has been under pressure to cut the country’s budget and reduce taxes in an effort to rein in inflation and kick-start an economy that is struggling through its worst recession in decades. The president has had difficulty, though, in getting her ministers to agree on the appropriate level and scope of budget reductions. The government had previously said that if no overall plan was announced by Friday, an across-the-board cut for the first three months of 2016 would be made instead. In her statement, published in the country’s official Gazette, Rousseff authorized non-discretionary 2016 spending through the end of March of 124.6 billion reais ($31.1 billion) and discretionary spending of 15.4 billion reais.
