Translated material
There is no money and will not be
In the Kremlin
There is no money and will not be
May 27, 2013 Maxim Blot
The Ministry of Finance invited the Ministry of Defense to “move” the implementation of the ambitious program of re-equipment of the army worth 20 trillion rubles for 2-4 years. Because the money in the budget for financing the state defense order neither in the next or in 2015 is not expected. According to preliminary estimates of the financial department, in 2014-15 the treasury will receive 1.6 trillion rubles less than planned.
The Ministry of Finance has not discovered any America here: that the 20-Trillion program for the re-equipment of the Russian army, which was supposed to become a locomotive of modernization, is not provided with budget revenues and is pure maninovisina and election explorescence, still Kudrin warned, being the Minister of Finance. For what, as you know, was expelled from the Medvedev team. Apparently remembering this, the current head of the financial department Anton Siluanov surpassed himself in the delicacy of formulations. Not only did the Ministry of Finance not just inform the security forces that they couldn’t see money, at least for now, and “offered to transfer” expenses, so Siluanov was personally hastened to add: “If there is such an opportunity, it is good if the Ministry of Defense says that no, it means no.”
It would be interesting to look at the military who will show retaliatory delicacy and answer Siluanov something like: “Of course, of course, you won’t be pleased to worry, we don’t have a hurry, we will wait for how much it will need.” There would be a good plot for a budget comedy show.
In practice, the military department, obviously, will say that there are not two years to wait for two years. And if the Ministry of Finance shows perseverance, the Ministry of Defense may say that no one was pulled by Siluanov for the tongue, when he soon after his appointment promised that the money to fulfill the Tandem’s election promises should be enough. There will be no delay, because even in the Ministry of Defense they understand that if money begins to be missing now, then in four years they will not appear anywhere. And the president is clearly not on the side of the government. It constantly reminds of how the cabinet works poorly on the implementation of decrees, in which the election promises are assigned, including those promised by the military unfortunate 20 trillions. The promised, by the way, the current prime minister, and then President Medvedev. Moreover, this week Putin instructed the head of the cabinet until June 7 to write a five -year government plan, which should include measures aimed at fulfilling the presidential decrees.
So Siluanov will have to look for money for the Ministry of Defense, while trying not to get into debts much, without raising taxes and not giving himself the will to reduce social expenses. The latter, by the way, will go under the knife. On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said that she received an instruction from Medvedev to revise the healthcare program. As a result of this revision, the program only next year can lose 255 billion rubles.
Another “promising direction” is pension reform. Of course, there will not be a lot of existing pensioners, of course, but the accumulations of those who have retired in 15-20 years are too tidbit, so as not to try to use it somehow, for a good deed, of course. True, this money is already practically “attached”. Indeed, not only defense enterprises need budget allocations. It is necessary to build the roads, to master Siberia with the Far East. But if desired, you can scrape something for the military. Not 20 trillions, of course, but at least something.
However, recently, a persistent feeling has been created that the main renovation of the Ministry of Finance, as well as the rest of the government, is not even a rapid increase in oil prices, but on the contrary - their collapse. In other words, the crisis. On which it will be possible to write off all your mistakes and failures, which will allow some time to hold out on the remnants of reserves, and then go into a saving resignation, leaving to rake the socio-modernization blockages to someone else.