Jul 01 2006
The Latest Central-Local Contention
According to Christine Wong’s observation, the central-local contention in China is key to understand public governance.
Recently, some new developments:
1. 各地违规直接返还税款的问题已大为减少，但依然存在以补贴、奖励等名义，通过财政支出变相向企业返还税款的现象。In order to attract investment, local governments often refund business tax. This worsens fiscal picture and central government tries to curtail that practice.
2. 一些地方甚至在国务院明令禁止低价出让土地的情况下，采取先按国家规定签订土地出让合同，再返还土地出让金或者给予财政补贴等手段，变相低价出让土地。Similar vein.
3. 目前中央补助地方支出已占中央财政总支出的57%，占地方财政支出的45%。但由于目前中央补助地方支出预算编制还比较粗放，透明度还不高… In other words, the central transfer money is not properly captured by budgeting process.
4. 在补助地方支出中，专项转移支付资金使用分散、部门职能及项目内容交叉重复的问题还比较突出 … central transfer takes a highly ad hoc route.
5. 进一步深化部门预算改革，增强预算的刚性约束。This is something really important–regardless who is running the government. People should learn to live and die by budgets. (above see here)
6. 贺铿委员说， 大量资金掌握在中央部门手中，又是分散掌握，出现重复交叉、资金浪费，出现“跑部钱进”等现象是很自然的。.. 全国人大财经委主任傅志寰说，专项转移支付的问题共有二百多项，这种现象是不大正常的。(see here) Now too much Tiao. Remember someone wrote an journal article about the Tiao-Kuai struggle and saying some recent policies (mixture of both but put a lot into the hands of provinces) may breed “federalism”. See my notes of that article.