Chapter 39 Chapter VIII: Problem solving——5. Proposal No. 1

In the first year of the comprehensive pilot program in Anhui Province, although Chenzhuang Town in Dangshan County in the Huaibei Plain and Nanji Township in Ningguo City in the Jiangnan mountainous area appeared, they still practiced "policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom"; Longtang Township of Feidong County and Guangda Township of Lai'an County between the Jianghuai River and the Huaihe River still went their own way, and even killed people. However, the overall situation in the province is still encouraging.The reform of taxes and fees not only reduced the burden on farmers, brought tangible benefits to farmers, promoted the reform of the township fiscal and tax collection and management system, improved the relationship between the party and the masses, cadres and the masses, but also promoted the construction of rural grassroots democratic politics and maintained rural social stability.

Bottom line: off to a great start. Perhaps because of such a gratifying start, on December 13, 2000, Minister of Finance Xiang Huaicheng delivered such a speech in Beijing: "Next year, the pace of national rural tax and fee reform will be accelerated, and the central finance will also Set aside 20 billion yuan for transfer payments to local governments to support this reform.” On February 15, 2001, "Xinhua Net" then released a related news message: "China's Rural Tax and Fee Reform is in full swing."According to the source, “In March 2000, the Chinese government decided to start the pilot work of tax and fee reform in Anhui Province first. This year, it will be promoted nationwide, and it will be basically completed in 2002.”

This is the first time that the news media has publicly disclosed the timetable for China's rural tax and fee reform.This timetable clearly shows that: from the pilot project to the national promotion until the basic completion, each stage will only take one year; the whole work will not exceed three years.That is to say, the rural tax and fee reform, which is called the third great reform in China's rural areas after the land reform and the "big contract", will be completed within the current term of the government. Faced with such news, many people of insight expressed deep doubts, feeling that it was neither realistic nor possible.This is because this reform has touched on some deep-seated institutional issues and some major reform directions. Many issues were gradually exposed as the reform deepened. There are many things that we were not familiar with in the past and need to be further developed. It will take time to understand and seek solutions to these emerging problems.It can be said that this great reform has only just solved the problem, and it is too hasty to announce that this work will be "basically completed" in 2002, and it is unbelievable. The news on "Xinhua Net" is obviously not groundless. Not long after "Xinhua Net" released this news, the National Rural Tax and Fee Reform Pilot Work Conference was held in Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province.

Because the reform of rural taxes and fees has become a major measure taken by the Party Central Committee and the State Council to solve the "three rural" issues in the new stage of agricultural development, and it is related to the overall situation of rural reform, development, and stability in each province, it is decided Almost all the secretaries or governors of the provincial party committees or governors of the 20 provinces to be expanded the pilot program, as well as the ministers of relevant ministries of the State Council, rushed to this city in central China. According to statistics, for the meeting in Hefei, forty-eight ministerial (provincial) level leaders came.Therefore, this meeting has not only become the highest-level meeting in the history of Anhui Province, but also the highest-level national meeting on rural reform in China in recent years.

At the meeting, the State Council made overall arrangements for the reform of rural taxes and fees. If it wasn't for a sensational event during the two sessions, the spirit of the Hefei meeting would have been quickly implemented on a larger scale throughout the country. This reform of rural taxes and fees can really be pushed to the whole country in the shortest time. However, a proposal at the subsequent National People's Congress changed the process of China's rural tax and fee reform. The Hefei meeting has just ended, and the Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress kicked off in Beijing.At the meeting, Premier Zhu, on behalf of the State Council, made the "Report on the Outline of the Tenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development".In his report, he emphasized: During the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" period, we must fully implement the party's basic policies in the countryside, strengthen the basic position of agriculture and increase farmers' income as the primary task of economic work.

After listening to Premier Zhu's work report, many representatives were more sad than excited.Because "common sense" words such as strengthening the basic position of agriculture have to be talked about in almost every meeting. I don't know how many years have been talked about, but until today, the "three rural" issues are still the biggest problems in China.After the mid-1980s, when the burden of farmers became increasingly prominent, the State Council issued the "Notice on Effectively Reducing Farmers' Burdens" in February 1990. In September of the same year, the Party Central Committee and the State Council made resolute measures to stop arbitrary fees All kinds of apportionment decisions, such notices or decisions have been issued almost every year since then, but to this day, the burden of farmers is still a matter of sighing!

Rao Zuoxun, a representative of the People's Congress of the Fujian delegation, frankly stated that farmers are most worried about policy instability and overburden. However, no breakthrough measures were cited. At the Fourth Session of the Tenth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held successively with the Fourth Session of the Ninth National People's Congress, a total of ten members spoke at the meeting, half of whom spoke about agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. During the Two Sessions, a Danish reporter even questioned whether the Ministry of Labor and Social Security Zhang Zuoji, the Minister of Labor and Social Security of the session, was in, whether the Ministry of Labor and Social Security was only for urbanites, regardless of farmers.

At the press conference held at the conference, Premier Zhu made a detailed account of the rural tax and fee reform that Chinese and foreign journalists are concerned about: "We currently collect 30 billion yuan in agricultural taxes from farmers, and 60 billion yuan in agricultural taxes. Township overall planning, village retention, plus arbitrary fees, will take about 120 billion yuan a year from farmers, or even more. Our tax reform this time is to eliminate the three dollars we are currently collecting. The agricultural tax of 10 billion yuan will be increased to 50 billion yuan, that is, from 5% to 8.4%, and the 60 billion yuan retained by other townships, villages, and arbitrary fees will be reduced. Of course, To reduce the burden on farmers, there will be a gap in local finance, which is very large, and the central government will allocate 20 billion to 30 billion to subsidize rural areas in difficult provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. However, this gap is still very large.”

If the burden of 900 million farmers is to be reduced, how big will the local fiscal gap be? Is the burden on farmers really only 120 billion a year? "Even more", how much is this "more"? Premier Zhu did not specify. The key to determining the success of the reform of rural taxes and fees and whether the burden on farmers can be truly reduced lies in clear accounting.These crucial things cannot be ambiguous.Only when we are clear about it can we have a clear idea of ​​the supporting reforms in all aspects. Li Changping, the author of the book "I Tell the Truth to the Prime Minister", made a specific investigation on this, and he stated very frankly: "The burden on Chinese farmers is far more than 100 billion yuan, at least more than 400 billion yuan. !"

He listed several accounts by category: the debts owed by counties, townships, and villages across the country are as much as 600 billion yuan, and the interest that needs to be paid each year is at least 80 billion yuan; The salary is 80 billion yuan, and the annual payment for school building maintenance, equipment purchases, and education debts is 50 billion yuan; there are more than 19 million "cadres" in county and township party committees, governments, and relevant departments across the country. There are more than 23 million "cadres" at the village and group levels, and their annual salary is another 250 billion yuan.

For the above three items, the minimum annual expenditure will be more than 460 billion yuan. In addition, there are nearly 3,000 counties in the country, nearly 30,000 bureaus, nearly 50,000 townships, 700,000 township departments need to operate, and there are 4 million natural villages with nearly 800 million farmers living in the countryside. The demand for public goods costs at least 300 billion yuan a year. In short, 70 to 80 percent of the various expenditures below the county level are borne by the peasants.Farmers' pockets are county and township finances.According to the current farmers' burden policy, the actual annual burden of farmers is as high as 400 billion to 500 billion yuan! The actual burden on the peasants is so great, which is obviously the reason why the central government repeatedly ordered to reduce the burden on the peasants, but the burden on the peasants has not been eradicated.This once again proves what Premier Zhu said in a letter written by Li Changping: "We often regard good situations as general conditions, and mistakenly believe in the good news from below, so we fail to see the seriousness of the problem. .” Of course, on this issue, the representative of Anhui Province has the most say. Because the tax reform has been piloted in Anhui for one year, the provincial party committee and the provincial government have silently overcome many difficulties and tried their best, but they still often feel powerless.After the pilot reform, the funds of township and village-level organizations have become stretched, and solutions can be found from streamlining institutions, reducing personnel, and increasing efficiency and saving expenses. However, the current tax reform plan will replace the original education Surcharges and education funding were canceled, and the gap was so large that a considerable number of rural primary and secondary schools could not continue to operate, and rural teachers could not get paid.If the comrades in Anhui do not reflect the problems related to compulsory education in the pilot work in a timely manner and get effective solutions, once the central government launches the tax reform work throughout the country, the impact on rural compulsory education and the resulting The loss would be immeasurable. Therefore, the representatives of the Anhui Provincial People's Congress felt obliged to write this matter into a bill and submit it to the congress. Therefore, at this meeting of the National People's Congress, the delegation of Anhui Province, after carefully summarizing the pros and cons of the reform of rural taxes and fees over the past year, submitted a request to increase investment in basic education and formulate the "Compulsory Education Investment Law" as soon as possible. motion. The motion proposed by the Anhui delegation immediately aroused strong repercussions among the representatives of the provinces, became a sensational hot topic, and was listed as the "No. 1 motion" of the conference. It was a female representative from Anhui that initiated this motion.She is Hu Pingping, deputy director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Education. Hu Pingping became the most eye-catching news figure in the two sessions almost overnight. Hu Pingping has been a deputy to the National People's Congress for two terms, and it has long been her conscious action for a people's representative to speak for the people.The reason why she thought of submitting such a proposal was not only because she is the deputy director of the Education Department, but also because she was a teacher. Besides, Anhui is a large agricultural province, and she pays attention to the development of rural education, especially the life and work of rural teachers. The environment has become a thing that she will never give up and never tire of. Through careful investigation, Hu Pingping found that before the reform of rural taxes and fees in Anhui, the funds for rural compulsory education mainly came from three aspects: one is township financial appropriation; , That is, "education surcharge"; and then engage in "educational fundraising" from farmers.Before 1994, there was basically no salary owed to teachers in rural areas. In 1994, due to the implementation of the national tax and local tax sharing system, the local financial resources were weakened. The funds for rural compulsory education mainly depended on collecting money from farmers. Education surcharges and education fundraising, and the rest, the 300 million yuan gap in rural teachers' salaries in the province every year, are paid out by borrowing from banks.As of 2000, the debt for this item alone had accumulated as high as 1.7 billion yuan.After the tax reform, the education surcharge and The two fees for raising education funds have all been cancelled. After the reform, rural compulsory education funds are required to be allocated from the township financial budget.The Provincial Department of Education conducted a survey on this. In 2000, the available financial resources of towns and villages in Anhui Province were only 4.6 billion yuan, while the wages of 660,000 people in the province's towns and villages were already more than 4.95 billion yuan. Yuan, there is no money to invest in education.What's more, the two education-related charges in the tax reform will leave a shortfall of 1.1 billion yuan each year.According to regulations, the renovation of dilapidated houses in rural primary and secondary schools still needs 300 million yuan per year. In the past, this money was settled by reaching out to farmers, and now it can no longer be collected from farmers.Putting it all together, the gap in rural compulsory education funding in Anhui Province is a very, very large figure! The situation suddenly became very serious.Only in Fuyang, where the reform of taxes and fees was carried out the first time, as of the spring of 2001, teachers’ wages were in arrears of 617.27 million yuan, an average of ten months’ wages in arrears for teachers in the whole region; Teachers haven't been paid since tax reform! Teacher salaries, bank debts, infrastructure costs for education layout adjustments, and dilapidated house renovation funds owed to rural compulsory education in the province totaled more than 6 billion yuan! When Hu Pingping thought of this, he became very anxious. What to do with such a big gap?It seems that there are only two ways to go, either to close 40% of rural primary and secondary schools, or to continue to default in this way. The farmers saw it in their eyes, anxious in their hearts, and said worriedly: "Now, the burden of the farmers has been lightened, the teachers' stomachs have been hungry, and our children have been missed!" Many rural teachers are puzzled: since the country has banned arbitrary fees charged by the township government, it must first ensure that this huge expenditure has a "source". And how to solve the source?Why haven't you seen any city's government charging citizens for compulsory education?Farmers have already paid the agricultural tax and agricultural special product tax, and they should have become taxpayers like the citizens working in the city. According to the principle of "public finance", the expenditure of the central government's fiscal revenue should take into account the interests of all citizens, and should not " Separation of urban and rural areas, one country, two policies".Moreover, fundamentally speaking, compulsory education should be funded by the government, otherwise what is it called "compulsory education"? Of course, the crux of the problem does not lie in the reform of taxes and fees. It is just that the implementation of tax and fee reforms has brought to the fore a deep-rooted systemic problem that has long been covered up by the burden of farmers. As a result, the local fiscal revenue is too small and the affairs in charge are too many. A survey by the Development Research Center of the State Council also illustrates the seriousness of this problem: At present, 78% of the investment in compulsory education in China is borne by villages and towns, and the vast majority of them are "bought by farmers". Nine percent is borne by the county finance, and 86 percent is borne by the county and township levels; provinces and cities (prefectures) are also responsible for 11 percent; the central government bears only 10 percent About two! No matter how you look at it, such a policy design is extremely unreasonable and unreasonable. Almost all industrial countries in the world believe that education is the primary factor for production development and a powerful driving force for a nation.Most of the annual education expenditures in the world are second only to military expenditures in the expenditures of public funds, occupying the second place.The population of industrialized countries in the world only accounts for one-third of the total population, but their education expenditures are more than ten times that of developing countries; while China's population exceeds one-fifth of the world's total population, education expenditures only account for to one-thirtieth.It's unbelievable. We can spend so much effort to win the first place in a sports event, but we have turned a blind eye to education, especially compulsory education, a major project that is closely related to the future and destiny of the country, which is also confusing. . It has been more than 50 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the children born after liberation are no longer young, but among the peasants in China, there are more than tens of millions who have not received basic cultural education?And there are so many illiterates.Facing the vast rural areas of China that are still so economically and culturally backward today, if we do not avoid the facts, we have to admit that we are indeed failures in education. The original intention of the central government to implement financial centralization is to concentrate financial resources to accomplish major tasks, but is the compulsory education of 900 million farmers still a small matter? It should be said that increasing investment in rural compulsory education and formulating the "Compulsory Education Investment Law" as soon as possible is not only an actual need for rural tax and fee reform, but also an urgent need for implementing the "Outline of China's Education Reform and Development".The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council promulgated the "Outline of China's Educational Reform and Development" as early as 1993, which clearly stipulates that the proportion of education expenditures to the gross national product should reach 4% by the end of the century.However, by 1999, only 2.79% had been realized, 1.2% less invested. In 2000, my country's GDP reached 8940.4 billion yuan, and fiscal revenue reached 1338 billion yuan. The fourth goal is to increase education funding by more than 110 billion yuan. If the central government allocates 110 billion yuan in accordance with the provisions of the "Outline", many problems in China's rural compulsory education and even rural tax and fee reforms will be easily solved! We must realize that the requirement to increase investment in rural compulsory education is neither "benevolent" to farmers nor "handout" to them.From 1956 to 1980, the state took 1 trillion yuan free from farmers only through the price difference between industrial and agricultural products; Take more in your hands. We have owed them too long, too much, and we cannot and should not continue to do so! Hu Pingping's determination to write this bill immediately received great attention from the leaders of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial Government, the Provincial People's Congress, and the Provincial Political Consultative Conference.Finally, the province decided to submit it to this conference as a motion of the Anhui delegation. As soon as Proposal No. 1 appeared, it not only aroused strong repercussions from the representatives of the two sessions, but also attracted the attention of leaders of 20 provinces and regions who had attended the National Rural Tax and Fee Reform Pilot Work Conference.Now, they have carefully calculated the detailed accounts, so they wrote reports one after another, asking the central finance to help solve the funds needed for transfer payments in the pilot work.In one province, it only requested to solve the practical difficulties in compulsory education and institutional reform, and applied for a subsidy of 10.5 billion yuan.The provinces add up, to say the least, there are more than 100 billion yuan! In terms of reform, there has been such a big gap in reform, which Premier Zhu did not expect.It is also impossible for the central government to pay so much at once. Yes, the boat sinks when the feathers accumulate, and the group breaks the shaft lightly. The problems in China's rural areas are the result of years of accumulation, and they are also a comprehensive manifestation of many contradictions in national economic and social development.The problems are too many and too complicated. Effectively reducing the burden on farmers is undoubtedly the first goal of rural tax and fee reform.But when we delve into the causes of farmers’ burdens, the complexity is enough to make everyone feel like a blind man trying to figure out the elephant: there are reasons for large institutions and overstaffed people; there are reasons for lack of investment and weak foundation; Causes of blockage; reasons of urban-rural division and unfair treatment; reasons of out-of-control regulation and corruption; social and economic inherent, deep-seated, and many, many reasons; of course, there are also reasons of farmers themselves... Comrade Deng Xiaoping once said: If there is any problem with China's economy, it may be caused by agriculture.Because China's agricultural, rural and peasant issues are the most easily overlooked, when we feel the need to seriously address it, it may have developed into a big problem. In April 2001, shortly after the closing of the two sessions of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the overseas media suddenly became lively, and there were many reports about the miscarriage of China's rural tax reform. Of course this is baseless. "Ensuring the success of rural tax and fee reform" - the determination of the Chinese government is unwavering.China's rural tax and fee reform has not been aborted, and it is impossible to abort. It is just that the timetable for the reform disclosed by "Xinhua Net" has never been heard again.The central government made a new decision: Anhui Province will continue to explore the reform of rural taxes and fees, and other provinces and autonomous regions across the country will not expand the pilot program for the time being. Although this adjustment is very different from the deployment of the Hefei meeting, and it took only two months before and after this change, it is indeed an extremely responsible attitude, and it is the calmest and most responsible attitude. Smart decision! Just when the Wall Street Journal was reporting that China's rural tax and fee reform was frustrated and aborted, people saw on the screen of China Central Television that Premier Zhu was inspecting the rural areas of Anhui. He encouraged the cadres and the masses in Anhui to make persistent efforts , strive to resolve new contradictions and new problems encountered in the reform of rural taxes and fees, and resolutely lead this reform to a comprehensive and in-depth perspective.