Citizenizing Farmers Cannot Focus Only on Fiscal Costs
The State Council recently issued the "Opinions on Further Advancing the Reform of the Household Registration System," and China's household registration system reform has once again set off. However, some commentators believe that the reform of the household registration system is still very difficult, and fiscal cost, for example, is one of the thorny issues.
The "Urban Blue Book" released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2013 stated that the per capita public cost of citizenizing the agricultural transferred population in China's eastern, central and western regions was 176,000 yuan, 104,000 yuan and 106,000 yuan respectively, with a national average per capita cost of 131,000 yuan. The "Urban Blue Book" predicted that by 2030 the urbanization rate will reach about 68%, at which point approximately 390 million agricultural transferred people will need to achieve citizenization, which means the government will need to spend about 51.1 trillion yuan in public costs.
According to analysis, the public cost of citizenizing the agricultural transferred population is mainly concentrated in the increased fiscal input required for urban infrastructure construction and maintenance as well as public services, and mainly includes input for urban construction and maintenance, public service management, social security, compulsory education for accompanying children, and affordable housing.
Judging from the current fiscal situation and the trend of slowing economic growth, the cost of citizenizing farmers predicted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is indeed not a small problem that can be ignored. From official data published by the Ministry of Finance, it can be seen that in the cumulative period from January to June this year, national fiscal revenue was 7,463.8 billion yuan, an increase of 604.8 billion yuan over the same period last year, a growth of 8.8%. Based on the fiscal revenue situation in the first half of the year, it is estimated that national fiscal revenue for the whole year will have no problem reaching around 15 trillion yuan. Even if this figure is used as an average base for calculation, over the 16 years from mid-2014 to mid-2030, the total national fiscal revenue will reach 240 trillion yuan. And given the predictability of economic growth, the total fiscal revenue over these 16 years will certainly be significantly higher than this figure.
51.1 trillion yuan is indeed not a small sum in absolute terms. The various rigid fiscal expenditures of governments at all levels cannot be cut, and when flexible expenditures for dealing with various problems are added, it is relatively difficult to fully resolve such a large fiscal burden relying solely on government fiscal revenue. “However, the view that the so-called 51.1 trillion yuan will be a huge fiscal burden” often focuses on consideration of the input required for citizenizing farmers, while ignoring that citizenizing farmers is also a process of transferring productive forces and creating productive value.
In fact, citizenizing farmers is not a matter of input without output. Farmer-turned citizens have always been creating value. The reason they are willing to move from rural areas to cities is precisely that in cities they can create more value and thus obtain more returns. Citizenized farmers also do not first create value only after government input. Many migrant workers have already been continuously creating value before receiving the benefits of government fiscal input. Therefore, we may perhaps say that a considerable portion of the so-called huge fiscal burden will be offset by the newly added value created by the enormous number of “new citizens” relative to when they were farmers.
In the reporter's view, when looking at the citizenization of farmers, one cannot statically get bogged down in the absolute figure of fiscal cost, but should dynamically see the value added brought about by this transformation process. The citizenization of farmers can drive society to create more wealth, which also means that government fiscal revenue will have a more solid foundation. In addition, apart from the value-added wealth creation it itself brings, as farmers' incomes rise and the consumption environment and awareness change, the expansion of consumption it brings is also a boost to economic development and will become an important fulcrum for expanding domestic demand.
It should be emphasized that seeking truth from facts is the “compass” for our formulating, understanding and implementing policies. The ultimate goal of citizenizing farmers is certainly not to increase burdens, but for the country's better development and for the people to obtain a better life.