VSHE professor Evgeny Gontmamer: “The budget in 2020 will be with trillions of loss rubles”

After the Pandemia of Coronavirus, the May decrees of Putin will be “radically impossible,” told Taiga.info Russian economist Yevgeny Gontmamer. The calls that appeared in 2020 will be key to the president, he said.

Professor of the Higher School of Economics Evgeny Gontmamer, on the air of the Taiga Light, told why the payments to the population during the Pandemia of the Coronavirus can timed to vote under the constitution, and how 2020 will affect the political life in Russia and Putin’s personal fate.

Taiga.info gives a partial decoding of the program.

On direct payments to the population

It seems to me that the straighter the path of money to support the population and business, the better it is in social terms. In the place of Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would decide that this is good for the ratings. Now 10 thousand rubles for children under 16 years of age have been allocated without needing criteria - it’s good, it is right, as it seems to me.

But, remember, everything rested in the first couple of days: the site of the “public services” hung, and I saw photos in a number of Russian regions, like people stood in lines to apply for this payment. The idea is good, and its implementation, even in such a simple form, is difficult. I would now use the banking system to a minimum.

Apparently there will be more direct payments. I suppose that pensioners will receive something else. How much - I don't know. It will depend on how to agree with the Ministry of Finance. Perhaps [payments] will still receive other categories of the population. This will be dedicated to some political events: voting on the Constitution or a single voting day in September [2020], although these are not federal elections.

Voting on the Constitution for Putin is fundamentally important: they report that the mood of the population is not very good. When there is a vote, no one knows, but it will be. In this case, the policy prevails over the "socialist".

I must say that in Moscow there are elements of such payments. For two months we do not take payments for overhaul. This is introduced for all residents - and this is right.

On the deficit of the state budget

With the budget, the situation is difficult. This is partly due to pandemia, because economic activity in the country has significantly decreased. In taxes, according to the latest data, minus 20-30% of revenues. Plus, this is aggravated by oil and gas, when prices for them fell significantly. According to the results of recent months, Rosneft and Gazprom at a loss.

The budget this year, of course, will be a deficit - about 2-3 trillion rubles will be at a loss. This is quite significant. And what should we do with national projects? They were declared by the government, Putin personally oversees them. About 25 trillion rubles are laid there, and this must be financed. Plus, you need to finance current budget expenditures.

According to the forecasts that I trust, there will be minus 5% of GDP - this is a lot. Next year there will also be a minus, maybe not so big. And only in 2022 the economy will return to the level that was in the past [2019], but he did not suit us, because the growth rate was small. Therefore, the replenishment of the National Welfare Fund and our other state “cubes” will not go, but their expense will be.

About the methods of replenishment of the budget

Now to take and spend reserves to make payments is risky, because in a year or two we will find ourselves on the shallows. The only option remains - to borrow, but in foreign markets no one will give a loan for many reasons. Or borrow from you, as in the Soviet Union: "Buy Stalinist loans from us."

The third option is just to print rubles to fulfill all the obligations to a minimum. And there is information that the printing of money has already begun. Other dangers begin: inflation and stratification. The increase in prices hits, first of all, through low -income people.

The government’s economic problems are very big. How will they solve them? From my point of view, you need to start reform. This is about the same situation that was at the end of the Soviet period, 1989–91. When a team of reformers came and began to “treat”, moreover, with rigid methods. I'm afraid this is the only option.

It is unlikely that Putin will go for this, because any reforms are political risks. Next year, the State Duma election is also a fundamentally important point.

About a request for changes after a pandemic

Putin's May decrees in 2018, nine national goals - this was actually his program for the next six years: reducing poverty, economic growth higher than the average ID, high -tech production, and export growth. Now all this has been back.

We will fly in 2020, we will not have time to look back. 2021 will be no better than the twentieth. And everyone perfectly understood, even before the pandemic, that all the national goals that Putin designated were impossible. Radically impossible. Yes, there are people who offer other ways of development, but he decides-this is how the political system is arranged.

Suppose Putin needs to pronounce a message to the Federal Assembly. What will he say? How will we move by 2024, nothing left? What patterns? What will we do with the economy, society?

People, it seems to me, had a request for changes even before the pandemic, sociology showed this. The feeling that we are stagnated, and it will be necessary to give an answer to this. If there were no pandemic, the answer could be stretched for a long time. He [Putin] should come to something that seems pretty to society, but what can he say? This is the problem.

If he pretends that nothing happened - “well, a pandemic has passed, we won” - no, it will not pass. He will have to give an answer to this challenge. Let's see. I don’t know when this moment will come in 2020, but it will be key to Putin. For his personal fate and the entire political situation in Russia.