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Costa Rica lawmakers approve budget

Lawmakers yesterday approved President Oscar Arias administration’s $7.45 billion budget for 2009, an estimated 3.7 percent increase in real spending over this year.

The big winners are education, health and culture. Real spending will increase by 23.4 percent for the Health Ministry and 37.5 percent for the Culture Ministry. The Education Ministry will receive about $2 million, an increase of 24.3 percent over this year and more than one quarter of the total budget.

Still, lawmakers from the opposition Citizen Action Party (PAC) criticized the Arias administration for failing to fulfill the president’s campaign process to invest 8 percent of GDP in education.

Although Arias calls security a priority, the Security Ministry’s budget will increase by a smaller margin than health or education. Some $192 million will go to fight crime, a 14.9 percent increase over this year in real terms.

About 72 percent of the budget will be financed by state income, while 28 percent will come from the sale of state bonds.

Some 23 of the 39 lawmakers who attended session yesterday afternoon gave the budget a thumbs-up.

Beginning next week, the Executive Branch will be able to decide the legislative agenda. The administration is prioritizing bills that would overhaul the immigration system, transfer cash to state banks, crack down on traffic law violations and beef up security.