Budget Master

The nationalization of Russia creates a class society

At the end of the calendar year, officials are traditionally in a hurry to master the budget. In this case, do not steal, but spend it in some suitable way and then report that the money has run out. There is an iron logic here: if the budget remains underutilized, then next year it can be reduced.

Incidentally, this feature of “budget planning” is one of the reasons why government spending is always overstated, even if a miracle has happened and there is no outright theft. Since almost all the money in the country already passes through the state, seasonal budget development is turning into a national sport. And it also leads, along with other factors such as the lack of control of officials, to a professional deformation of the consciousness of this group of people.

Officials in Russia believe that the state is they, the sovereign's people, and there is, and state money, accordingly, is in their personal property.

It is with this plot that all the latest cases of bureaucratic rudeness are connected, and behind the understandable indignation at the next blunder of bureaucrats, it is important to see this trend. Marina Yudenich, who holds the characteristic position of chairman of the council for human rights under the Moscow region governor Vorobyov, made the most noise in this sense. During a meeting with the residents of Korolyov, during which the restoration of the historic quarter was discussed, Yudenich asked the audience a question: “Have you invested anything in the budget to take from it?” Later, the official claimed that her words were “taken out of context” and the question was addressed not to the residents of Korolyov, but to representatives of the expert community. Yudenich gave numerous explanations in the press, which, however, do not change anything in essence.

The picture of the world that broke through in the question is quite understandable. There are dependents who draw on the resources of the state, which rightfully belong to completely different people, officials specially trained to master the budget. Officials are something like dragons who guard the state money. Only their own can get to them. And it is not so important whether these dependents in a particular case are represented by residents of the city of Korolev or by experts who propose to restore the quarter. Citizens only interfere with officials' lives. It is a completely different matter - some respected head of a state-owned company, who at first invested a hefty amount in the budget, but then he took more than enough from it. Or in reverse order, which happens more often.

We must thank Yudenich. Thanks to her directness, much was cleared up in the earlier statements of her colleagues. The same picture of the world is behind last year's hit head of the department of youth policy of the Sverdlovsk region Olga Glatskikh, who said that the state does not owe the youth anything. And behind the awkward phrase of the speaker of the Novgorod Regional Duma, Elena Pisareva, that after 30 years, women need not money (budget), but “a baby to love him.” And behind the last phenomenon in the same row today: the statement of the head of the youth policy department of the Altai Territory, Ekaterina Chetoshnikova, who accused teachers of inflated life expectations. Those who want to receive a salary of more than 9 thousand rubles want to own a Mercedes, without representing anything of themselves, she reasoned.

The latest rhetoric of Russian officials seems rude only as long as we do not notice the outlines of a new class society that is emerging before our eyes.

Service people competently manage the funds of the taxable class, and the latter, that is, you and I, are charged not to think about the sources of replenishing the budget, or about how it is spent. As well as possible, the growth of “classified expenses” turns out to be more opportune here.

It turns out that in the context of the new sincerity of the bureaucracy, it is necessary to fight not so much with rudeness - after all, if officials learn to be more tactful, this will not change the situation - but with the idea that the "population" gets under the feet of "professionals" and distracts them from mastering the budget.