Brazil Sets $23B Hike for Transit After Protests Under pressure after more than a week of nationwide protests, Brazilian leader Dilma Rousseff said Monday her government will spend $23 billion more on public transportation, promised to push a plebiscite on political reform and announced five core areas her government will focus on to improvements to government services. Rousseff made the announcement after meeting with leaders of a free-transit activist group that launched the first demonstrations more than a week ago. They said they would continue to protest, including lending their support to a Tuesday demonstration in Sao Paulo organized by other groups. The president also opened a meeting of governors and mayors from 26 capital cities to discuss ways to make deep improvements. I mainly want to repeat that my government is listening to democratic voices. We must learn to hear the voices of the street," Rousseff told the governors and mayors. We all must, without exception, understand these signals with humility and accuracy. Rousseff said she would push debate about holding a plebiscite on political reform - a special constitutional assembly that would hear from the Brazilian public about what action needs to be taken to improve Brazil's political system. She also said her government would focus on five priorities: fiscal responsibility and controlling inflation; political reform; health care; public transport; and education. Protesters have filled cities across this continent-sized country to air a wide spectrum of grievances including poor public services and billions of dollars of spending to prepare for next year's World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. Mayara Longo Vivian, one of the leaders of the Free Fare Movement who met with Rousseff in Brasilia, said that no concrete measures were given to the group and that their "fight would continue." The movement has been working since 2006 to eliminate public transport fares. Vivian referred to the billions of dollars Brazil is spending to host the World Cup, saying, "If they have money to build stadiums, they have money for zero tariffs" on public transportation. "The people are on the street, the left is on the street, with legitimate agendas," she said. Only with concrete measures from the state will this situation be reversed. At a demonstration in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, 68-year-old sociologist Irene Loewenstein said she was not impressed by Rousseff's action. "It's a necessary first step, but not a particularly meaningful nor surprising one," she said. Neither Dilma nor any other politician here is capable of even understanding, much less putting into practice, the kind of systematic change the people are demanding. It's just not within their world views. Monday marked the beginning of a more hands-on approach for Rousseff in the face of sharp criticism that she had been too silent during protests last week. She only made brief comments on June 17 and then a 10-minute, pre-recorded nationwide address Friday, a week after the protest exploded and a day after a million people took to the streets in at times violent protests. Since then, the demonstrations have shrunk and become less widespread. Rousseff, seeking to get off her heels, looked stronger Monday as she pushed her agenda.