In the past few days, Northeast China has been at odds with children.
Shenyang stipulates that for the birth of a third child, 500 yuan will be issued monthly until the child is 3 years old.
Harbin is even more aggressive than Shenyang, issuing 1,000 yuan monthly for the birth of a second child.
It seems that Harbin is financially strong.
In fact, it’s already in a mess.
In 2022, Harbin’s general public budget revenue was 26.2 billion yuan, and what was the expenditure? 106.5 billion yuan.
A deficit of over 80 billion yuan.
The huge fiscal deficit can only be barely filled by transfer payments and various patchwork measures.
Even so, they are still racking their brains to encourage people to have more children.
But where does this 1,000 yuan per month come from?
Some people may say that the pandemic didn’t end last year, and the situation was special.
Well, let’s look at 2019, when the pandemic hadn’t started yet.
In 2019, the revenue was 37.1 billion yuan, and the expenditure was 110.1 billion yuan.
Similarly, there was a deficit of 73 billion yuan.
Therefore, the pandemic is not an excuse; Harbin’s debt has existed for a long time.
As of today, Harbin’s debt has reached 290 billion yuan.
What’s the reason?
A large outflow of population, an economic downturn, coupled with the three-year pandemic, have put even more pressure on the entire Northeast’s finances.
If there is no source of income, then streamline expenses.
In 2018, Harbin began reforms of government agencies and institutions, with the goal of streamlining 20% that year.
Perhaps it was because they were really short of money that the streamlining reform was done very well.
By 2019, 600 municipal-level institutions were reduced to 244, a streamlining rate of 57%, far exceeding the 20% target.
It seems that the streamlining was indeed done well.
But the strange thing is that the expenditure is still rising.
In 2022, expenditure increased by 7.4% year-on-year.
The institutions have been streamlined, and it is said that the expenditure should decrease, but the result is that it has not decreased but increased.
Why? Someone said it well:
If you only reduce the institutions but not the people, you will only waste the budget, and it’s strange if it doesn’t increase.
Harbin is like this, and the entire Northeast is not much better, six of one and half a dozen of the other.
That’s all for today.
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