Song of the King of Finance

“And Olvier struck King Kudrin (Coudryn) and hit him in the very brain. Many proud Saracens were then killed there, ”an unknown author wrote at the end of the 14th century. Well, hit in the very brain, and then what? According to an old legend about Sir Ferumbras, the commander of Charlemagne, Olivier de Vienne, was captured in that battle. Karl had to help out a colleague.
So Vladimir Putin rescued Dmitry Medvedev. And the king of finance Kudrin remained on the battlefield, that is your proud Saracen. Although more than six hundred years ago this would have been an epic tale or a song, now a sober talk about government spending would be more appropriate.
They say that Kudrin was the only one in the Russian government who knew how to contain these costs. That is, to say “no” when someone important demanded money that was not planned by the budget. And now, with his removal from the valve, the streams of money will break out. Such a turn should please, for example, the deputy head of the Kremlin administration, Vladislav Surkov, who was sitting on the right hand of Medvedev during his angry rebuke to Kudrin. Surkov has long said that government accountants hinder the country's development and stifle its creative potential. Both he and Medvedev, who is increasingly agreeing with him, have some formal grounds for thinking so.
In Russia, government spending is only 23% of GDP. This is very small by the standards of the civilized world. In the European Union in 2010, according to Eurostat, Bulgaria had the lowest rate - 37.7%. In the EU as a whole, government spending is slightly more than 50% of GDP. It is clear that it is not fashionable to follow the example of Europe, which is tormented by the debt crisis. But even the American authorities will spend relatively more than ours this year - about a quarter of the gross domestic product. Only governments without special strategic ambitions spend less, for example, Sudanese (about 8% of GDP) or Ecuadorian (12%). A separate story is Japan and Switzerland: the authorities there seem to be stingy, because they spend 14% and 19% of GDP, respectively. But these are two huge economies that have developed in relatively small countries - the absolute figures per capita there are much higher than ours. „

Kudrin was the only one in the Russian government who knew how to say “no” when someone important demanded unplanned money from the budget.

“Moreover, Russia has a huge untapped reserve: our country's public debt is only 11% of GDP. According to this indicator, Russia is “healthier” than anyone with whom it makes sense to compare it. Only Chile, Botswana (6% each), Oman (5%) and Libya (0%) have less debt-to-GDP ratios, but we are not striving in this direction…
Even if oil prices fall, Russia will be able to hold out for a few more years, borrowing money on the market quite carefully. So why not use this historic moment to create new sectors of the economy in the country with public funds in the coming years, which will not depend on commodity prices and will save Russia from future crises? Should we applaud the departure of the miserly accountant from the post of Minister of Finance?
I propose to refrain from applause. "King Kudrin" worked in this post for 11 years and understood well that it was pointless to increase government spending. Not at all pointless, namely here in Russia. He also saw the Electronic Russia program, on which more than 20 billion rubles were spent without visible results, and the Olympic construction with an uncontrollably growing estimate (from the initial 300 billion to 1 trillion rubles), and the defense order, for which it is now proposed to use another 20 trillion rubles for 9 years. Moreover, in a sense, he sees the future - both the "gluttonous" Skolkovo and the endlessly costly World Cup.
In general, it is not even necessary to spend ten years in the chair of the head of the Ministry of Finance in order to see and understand all this: there will be no new sectors. But they will plunder enough money to create these very new sectors if they wish - for themselves personally, of course, and not for the budget - somewhere else. Where the tax regime is more favorable.
If no one else will hold the cut at least a little, we will see something else.