| According to a poll by the Levada Centre, two-thirds of
Russians oppose the replacement of pension state benefits with compensation
cash. More important, this issue has really hit the raw nerve of many people.
Take any radio talk broadcast whatever journalists and experts might discuss,
the air is flooded by calls from pensioners who ask one and the same question:
how can a pensioner survive now that the government has dared to lay its
hands upon fringe benefits.
What all people complain about is the fear of being cheated. People
don't even hope that their benefits will go against roubles at a fair
exchange rate. They say compensation money will be too little to cover
the market cost of the benefits.
Economically and theoretically everybody will profit, as benefits are
replaced by compensation in cash. All the money is collected and put right
into the purses. This is better than letting bureaucrats abuse this money,
and one can spend it on what he or she really needs. It would be heaven
to make the distribution fair enough to avoid giving to a 65-year-old
businessman the same as to an 80-year-old babushka without any source
of income. People feel good, and so does the budget as this involves no
extra expenses.
However, the reality is not as simple: fringe benefits allocations are
not enough to cover the real costs. As the Finance Ministry searches all
sources for money, experts fear that such a just reform could eat up all
budget surpluses. This may appear paradoxical, but it is far from it:
benefit providers have always been underpaid. Benefits were supplied in
kind unlimitedly, then the budget was charged for the expenses, but not
all the money was transferred and not on time. As a result, millions of
people exercise their right to ride community transport for free, but
the dreadful state of public transportation utilities is what the nation
pays in exchange. Housing services are nearly choked to death by benefit
underpayment.
The government could possibly have avoided airing the unpopular initiative
had it been able to pay to providers in full. It might have been not as
effective decision as could be, but anyway our celebrated budget bears
a lot of even less reasonable expenses than those. The real and obvious
trouble is that bureaucrats haven't ever learnt how to pay a fair price
on the one hand, and, on the other, the public utility infrastructure
is already wretched to a limit. So the lack of reputation among its own
people leaves the state no other way than to simply force reforms on society.
See also:
Social
Policies
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