The expert predicted the volume of the Russian budget deficit at the end of the year

The very fact of a lack of money in the treasury will not necessarily lead Russia to a crisis.

In 2022, the federal budget received less than 2.5 trillion rubles in taxes. This is evidenced by the conclusion of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy. This year the situation could be even worse. In the 1990s, a chronic budget deficit led Russia to a crisis. Have the authorities learned the lessons of the past and how serious the lack of money in the treasury will be at the end of the year on the air from the MK press center experts explained.

As Aleksey Zubets, director of the Center for Socio-Economic Research of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, pointed out, for ordinary people, the budget deficit in the country is not always a problem, but rather a blessing, but because the very fact of its presence means that the government spends more money on the development of the state, than planned. However, with the accumulation of problems with filling the state treasury in the long term, over 10-15 years, and even with rising inflation, this can become a big problem and lead to a crisis.

According to Oleg Buklemishev, director of the Center for Economic Policy Research at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, the problem is the state’s addiction to large deficits, which sooner or later becomes chronic and can lead to devastating crises, like what happened in Russia in the 1990s. “Under the current conditions, I expect a deficit of 5-6 trillion rubles at the end of the year,” he predicted. “It can be easily financed.” The budget deficit becomes a problem when it is not enough to borrow somewhere to reduce it, but it is necessary to raise taxes. This is a very unpopular measure, so the authorities in any state tend to avoid it.

“A budget deficit in the short term – in six months or a year – leads to higher inflation,” financial analyst Mark Goykhman warned. This is one of the reasons why it is desirable to avoid such a phenomenon in the course of balancing economic policy.