On September nth Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, announced that her government would cut some of the taxes that force Brazilians to pay more than most other people for electricity. The tax cut had been trailed for months, but confirmation had to wait until she had faced down strikes by federal civil servants which threatened to upset her fiscal sums. By August 31st, the deadline for sending next year's budget to Congress, almost all the strikers had accepted the government's original inflation-only offer of 15.8% over three years. The refuseniks will get no pay rise at all in 2013.
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