Increasingly lately, words about the consolidation of society, a consolidated opinion, etc. have been heard from TV screens. Another foreign word, unobtrusively (or maybe, on the contrary, very aggressively) entered our lexicon. The meaning of the word "consolidation" can be most correctly considered in matters relating to various concepts from the economic environment. The most obvious example is probably the consolidated budget.
General idea of the budget system
The Budget Code for each level of government (federal, regional, local) secured its "money purse" - the budget. These "purses" receive specific types of income. They can be spent on purely specific expenses, which each level of government has its own, established by law. "Purses" and are called - the federal budget, regional budgets and local budgets. Each of them is independent and almost independent. "Almost" - because the incoming funds are not always enough to fulfill the assigned powers. In such situations, financial assistance is usually provided.from one budget to another.
Budget spending
Expenses are also fixed in a rather interesting way: some types of expenses, for example, expenses for improvement or national defense, are typical only for one level of government. And some (for example, education, he althcare) are financed from the federal, and from the regional, and from the local budgets. Therefore, it is extremely incorrect to say that if one federal budget spends on he alth care is 3%, then only 3% of the budget is allocated for medicine. By the way, many journalists sin by this, pulling out some convenient piece from the context. The objective indicator in this case is the consolidated he alth care budget as a whole. And it will be far from 3%.
Consolidated budgets: examples
From the very meaning of the word “consolidate”, there is an understanding that it is necessary to combine, add numbers. The budget indicators are usually combined vertically and from the bottom. To make it clearer, this can be seen in the following example:
- At the very bottom of the vertical of power are local governments. According to the administrative-territorial division, municipal districts include rural and urban settlements. To fulfill its powers, each settlement has its own financial resources, combined into the budget of the settlement, and to fulfill the powers of the district, the district administrations act as a source of funds (here attention: it is"district", not "district") budget. In order to get an idea of the total budget of the administrative-territorial unit - the municipal district as a whole, i.e. the budget of the territory, you need to sum up all the budgets of the settlements and the district. What did you get? This is the consolidated budget of the district as a whole.
- The regional authorities (administrations of territories, republics, regions) have their own tasks. For their implementation, a regional budget is formed (krai, republican, regional). And in order to understand what kind of budget the territory has as a whole, it is necessary to sum up the budgets of all municipalities in the region with the regional one. What you get in the end is the consolidated budget of the region.
- The highest level of government is federal. He uses federal budget funds to fulfill his powers. And if we add it together with the consolidated budgets of all regions, we get the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation, that is, our entire country. It is from it that one can already take indicators characterizing the spending of funds in one direction or another. They will be objective and clear enough.
Conclusion
To draw the right conclusions, you must use only reliable information. I really want to believe that the population of our vast country, when it comes to the infringement of certain industries, will trust only those data, the source of which will be the indicators of the country's consolidated budget.
