You have to pay for everything in the world. As British journalist and writer Tony Parsons noted, “Do not trust politicians, prostitutes and those who offer you to change your tariff plan, mortgage, Internet provider, country of residence, wife for absolutely no fee. There is always a fee." Today, Russians are paying the price for the lack of structural reforms, growth in quality of life and GDP, achieved largely due to high energy prices and increased lending.

In conditions of full employment and capacity utilization, as well as the achievement of potential output, monetary and fiscal incentives are useless. Noting the structural nature of the crisis, the Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance are pursuing strict monetary and fiscal policies. Sanctions, counter-sanctions and anti-Western rhetoric reduce the likelihood of outside help.

As part of the electoral cycle that has just begun in Russia, work has begun on a development strategy. However, in addition to the well-known, but for various reasons, recommendations for protecting property rights, increasing the efficiency of the judicial system, reducing corruption, reforming the education system, and implementing effective law enforcement practices, it is also worth highlighting several seemingly unobvious problems that nevertheless require making operational decisions. An analysis of the history of the Russian economy shows that ineffective state-owned companies, an excessive share of the state, and an unjustified increase in spending on defense and public administration are the burden that drags the economy to the bottom. The basic recipe for getting rid of this burden is to cut costs, increase the efficiency of budget expenditures, buy technology and sell property.

In my opinion, the main problem today is hidden in the public administration system. According to Rosstat, the number of civil servants for 2008–2015. increased by 30.2% to 2.1 million, and the specific number of government officials has almost doubled over the past 30 years. In 1985, under a planned economy, there were 115 citizens of the country per official, in 2015 - 67. At the same time, expenditures on public administration in the USSR amounted to 0.8% of the budget, and in 2015 - already 7.1%, which increases the relevance of their audit and optimization.

We cannot ignore the low efficiency of government spending and the high share of the state in the economy. In its report on competition, the Federal Antimonopoly Service notes that the contribution of the state and state-owned companies to GDP in 2005 was 35%, and in 2015 – 70%. According to Rosstat, they employed 18.9 million people in 2014. The growth in the number of state unitary enterprises and municipal unitary enterprises negatively affects competition in local markets. Key state-owned companies tend to have excess non-core assets, and their expenses are not transparent. Budgetary support for inefficient companies distorts the structure of the labor market, which, despite the crisis, is characterized by high employment and hidden unemployment. The way out of the situation is through a large-scale sale of property, which is painful in the short term, but in the long term is one of the factors of economic growth.

The Ministry of Economic Development's proposal to increase infrastructure spending is not without its blind spots. According to a McKinsey Global Institute study on 49 countries, Russia in 2008–2013. spent 4.5% of total GDP on infrastructure (transport, water, electricity, telecommunications), which is slightly more than the country’s infrastructure needs predicted by the institute in 2016–2030. At the same time, the infrastructure quality index in relation to GDP per capita in 2012 turned out to be lower than the average for the sample. The quality of strategic planning for needs in this area, as well as the effectiveness of costs, remains an open question. For example, in the electric power industry, excess electrical capacity was largely the result of the implementation of large-scale investment programs, including by companies with state participation, which led to an unreasonable increase in consumer costs.

At the end of June, requiring additional capitalization, VEB extended the repayment period for Olympic loans to 25 years, while reducing the rate by almost 4 times - to 2.5%. Russians can only dream of such a rate on mortgage loans. Given the urgent need for the construction of high-speed railways and highways, the projects being implemented are often of an image nature, and their practical need is not obvious. For example, at the most expensive object of the Olympics in Sochi, the Adler-Krasnaya Polyana railway worth about 285 billion rubles. (out of a total of 1.5 trillion rubles spent), after the completion of the Games there was a low load. Russian Railways had to sharply reduce passenger transportation on this route. A review of the project structure and a rigorous audit of the effectiveness of budget expenditures is necessary.

The key issue is the introduction of new technologies. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, the leader in innovation is the United States, which filed more than 57,385 international patent applications in 2015, followed by Japan (44,235), China (29,846); Russia has only 792 of them. A breakthrough in innovation in the short term is unlikely - largely due to the lack of resources, ideas and the impossibility of their implementation in practice. At the same time, the low level of technological development hinders the growth of labor productivity.

The “catch-up development” strategy seems productive, providing for the creation of companies in the innovation sector with a state participation share (no more than a blocking stake) and the acquisition of patents and licenses. This approach showed high efficiency in the 1950s–1970s. in Japan, which has acquired more than 15,000 patents and licenses, and in China in the last 15 years, which has ensured accelerated technological development and GDP growth. In addition, the growth in the value of innovative companies in the future may be a source of covering the budget deficit as a result of the state withdrawing from their capital.

It is obvious that the situation in the economy, and especially in the sphere of public administration, requires the adoption of politically dangerous, but necessary decisions. Otherwise, taxpayers will again have to pay for everything.

What do Russians pay for?