An attempt to resuscitate the government

The budget message voiced last Thursday was the next attempt by Putin to at least somehow stir up the government, which is close to the coma, force the cabinet, and not just passively wait for the impending economic disaster and its subsequent resignation. Hence the President’s constant demands to submit to him strategies and plans. Moreover, it is not any kind of excellent paintings of a bright future, which someday will certainly come if the country is on the path of modernization, but those in accordance with which it would be possible not only to set goals, but also to consistently achieve them.

And now Putin gives three months to finish the budget strategy until 2030, in which it should “clearly assess possible risks, clearly indicate how we will act in any scenario, including unfavorable”. It sounds, frankly, wildly: the government has been preparing for the second wave of the global economic crisis for the fifth year, and it turns out that there is still no clear action plan “in any scenario, including adverse”. And this despite the fact that in scenarios, especially unfavorable, including voiced by government officials and experts, there is no lack.

Not only the budget strategy wants Putin from the government. In order to finish with the Ministry of Finance, it is worth mentioning Putin's demand, finally, with the creation of a Rosfinagge, which, back in the days of Kudrin, was supposed to be given to the management of government reserves and the funded part of pensions. If you recall last year’s budget message, then Putin instructed it to start the work of the Federal Agency forces from the beginning of this year, but it has not been created, since the government and the Duma will not agree on the legal form in which this structure should work.

His claims to the social bloc: responsible ministries and departments cannot “give birth” in the final version of pension reform, which is also written for not the first year. Now it’s even difficult to calculate, once again, Putin pronounces the phrase that sounded in the last budget message: “The priority task is to make fundamental decisions on the pension formula. The task is difficult, you practically approached its solution, you need to finish the work. ” What can we say about the pension formula if the Ministry of Finance with the Ministry of Health and Social Development cannot agree on who should administer insurance premiums. The Ministry of Finance proposes to return this function to tax authorities, and the social bloc insists that it is necessary to leave the collection of money for the Pension Fund and the Social Insurance Fund.

If earlier Putin’s attempts to stir the government have limited themselves to a socio-economic bloc, then recently, security officials cause more and more discontent. Not so long ago, the president criticized the five -year plans presented to him for the lack of specifics, and in the budget message he raised the question that if the Ministry of Defense is not able to really spend giant means allocated to him, then the Ministry of Finance proposed to do the rearmament of the rearmament.

Putin's current next attempt to “give impetus” to the work of the government will hardly be effective. If only because he once again recalled the need to implement his and Medvedev campaign promises, which a year ago by the expert community were almost unanimously recognized as impossible. Commenting on the budget message, the current Minister of Finance, who then prudently remained silent or promised to find the necessary sources of income, complains that "since 2016 and then the greatest stress with budget balance is expected." And gently hints at the impossibility of simultaneously finding money for the re -equipment of the army, mastering the Far East and Transbaikalia, holding the World Cup in 2018 and the implementation of all social projects declared by Putin. Apparently, this idea was reported to the president, and he, apparently, is ready to sacrifice precisely social projects, saying: "Ahead of the growth of social expenses, not secured by an increase in the economy, will lead us to a dead end." But even this victim is unlikely to provide resources by Putin's Megaprotes, which is understood in the government, preferring to passively wait for the inevitable resignation.