The Budget 2016 passed the second reading

It was almost the sensation that deputies were able to fairly painless find 315 billion rubles of additional funds that are offered to send for social needs. This fact by itself reflects not only the thoroughness of the parliamentary study of the documents, but also how professionally and efficiently in the economic bloc of the government to plan and evaluate the financial resources, if the constant references to the lack of money does not notice the hundreds of billions of unclaimed rubles.

Where will the money be sent? 170 billion will go to support the region, mainly at getting rid of credit commercial debt; 50 billion will help create new jobs in schools; 43 billion - the Crimea and Sevastopol, where, among other things, planned to build a railway. The additional funding is in the amount of 1 billion rubles from Moscow and St. Petersburg State University.

Deputies by strengthening the social orientation, have kept the main priorities of federal spending: the power unit and support the real economy in the first place - agriculture. Expenditure on these items will be financed from two funds, created for the first time under a single budget. In the village in the future allocate an additional 75 billion rubles year, so as not to frustrate the implementation of government programs to increase food production. The power block funding program will be renewed by 165 billion rubles. Education expenditures will be risen till 3.3 billion rubles, continue to strengthen the development of infrastructure, particularly roads.

Another important change in the law-in-draft is that the government deprived of the possibility to dispose of the Reserve Fund in the amount of up to 500 billion rubles, without making amendments to the budget.

Lawmakers could not change the size of the budget deficit to 3 percent of the GDP, or extreme vulnerability of the revenue, which was determined by the raw nature of the Russian economy and is calculated based on the price of 50 dollars per barrel. Forecasts of international analytical agencies, and the general trend of the world oil market give little reason for optimism: the average price is very likely to fluctuate in the range of 40-45 dollars. A substitute raw materials in the structure of public revenues is very problematic, taking in account that, according to Accounting Chamber, the dynamics of investment in fixed assets in 2016 will be negative, down by 1.6 percent. This means, experts say that the sphere of real production does not receive development, revenues remain vulnerable, still being formed by exports of raw materials, trade and financial intermediation. This situation is extremely dangerous for the formation of budget revenues. Opening the meeting, Andrey Makarov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Budget and markets, and many deputies told about this. First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes Sergey Katasonov (LDPR), while supporting the need to allocate an additional 170 billion rubles to save the regions who receive commercial loans, said that most of these loans - currency. Today, regions owe roughly one trillion rubles in foreign currency equivalent. This amount will increase in the next year just to service the debt will have to spend 400 billion rubles. The deputy sees the way out in devaluation of the ruble, having clearly in mind the depreciation of the ruble against the dollar. However, such a change is highly unlikely.

In general, the State Duma consider the budget the most balanced in the circumstances, proposed by government and financial authorities.