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Comment by lenilsonjr | Hacker News Reader

Take this one, for instance: https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/6185347

R$239.50 or $74. That's 25% the minimum wage here in Brazil.

This means that this congressman was paying for someone else's meal, which is in itself an act of corruption.

And even if that's not the case, most Brazilians can't afford a 40 BRL meal on a regular basis, so why should a politician be able to do so with our money?

If you dig deeper into other reports, you can also see congresspeople spending public money in sex shops and clubs, for instance (https://twitter.com/cuducos/status/840882495868530688).

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I think there are two separate issues.

I don't know whether paying for someone else's lunch is OK according to regulations for meal stipends in Brazil. I wouldn't call that corruption off hand, but it might be forbidden. I defer to you on this.

Personally I live in Buenos Aires and I regularly spend USD 15 on a no frills lunch menu in a fancy-ish neighborhood (nothing fancy for the food itself, no desert, the kind of place where a group of 20 people from nearby offices have a loud lunch). From my experience Sao Paulo is more expensive than Buenos Aires, so it didn't strike me as odd initially.

That's out of reach for the statistical average of income from Argentineans, but it's not an amount that a congressman wouldn't be able to afford on their own dime. I certainly wouldn't get outraged at the expense or assume corruption - congressmen are paid significantly above minimum wage.

40 BRL can pay a lunch in a very good restaurant, maybe not the commoner's bit understandable.

100 BRL would pay a buffet in a fancy barbecue shop, the absolute limit for me.

200 BRL+ is completely unnaceptable. Do they want to eat at a bistreau with public money?

You're missing one important thing here.

These spendings that Serenata's robot tweets are literally reimbursements that congresspeople receive from the federal government for spendings needed while "on duty".

They aren't paid using their salaries. If that was the case, there would be no problem (legally speaking).

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