| At a press conference in the State Duma. the head of the
YABLOKO faction Grigory Yavlinsky
and his First Deputy, member of the Duma Committee for Budget and Taxes
Sergei Ivanenko and Deputy
Head of the Duma Committee for Credit Institutions and Financial Markets
Igor Artemyev told the
press about the faction’s negative assessment of the government variant
of the draft budget for 2004 and showed an alternative document to the
journalists.
Commenting on the main provisions of the alternative draft budget, Yavlinsky
noted that these economic calculations provided to the public made it
possible to see more clearly the shortcomings of the government's draft.
YABLOKO's leader called the government's draft "a budget for stagnation",
as its main parameters do not differ from last year's budget or those
of 2001. The present budget demonstrates to the world the "crisis
of lagging behind and the obstructive mechanisms". All this could
be overcome, if it focused on the key development areas that should be
prioritized, noted Yavlinsky. He also said that the main task was to overcome
poverty which today threatens not only democracy and the economy, but
even the federative structure in Russia.
YABLOKO proposes a single social allowance amounting to the subsistence
minimum as a means of fighting poverty. This would require 270 billion
roubles in additional expenditures. According to the estimates of Yavlinsky
and his colleagues this money is easy to find: this is the amount of undeclared
revenues that the government has concealed for several years already in
the budget. Artemyev believes that reform of the tax system, bringing
wages into the open and reform of the pension system could also yield
additional funds. According to Ivanenko, family businesses with the capacity
to create 30-40 million jobs in Russia could serve as the foundation of
economic growth and a tool to overcome inflation. These issues and other
parameters have been envisaged by YABLOKO in its alternative draft budget
for 2004.
See also:
Budget
2004
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