However, contrary to the increasing popularity of the concept of public finance and the rapid advancement of public finance construction, people have various understandings and explanations of the meaning of public finance, which even leads to unnecessary ambiguity.
For example, in many documents issued by party and government organs and even some academic journals, public finance is only a simple replacement of the previous concept of finance, but it has not been given any substantive significance. Just like the word processing replacement function of computer, where the concept of finance was used in the past, it was replaced by public finance. As a result, the budget has become a public budget, fiscal revenue has become public fiscal revenue, fiscal expenditure has become public fiscal expenditure, and fiscal policy has become public fiscal policy. If things are really so simple, not to mention the serious asymmetry between the exploration cost and the actual income we have paid for more than 20 years, there are indeed many people who accuse of "tautology" and "gilding the lily". Because, unlike family planning (income and expenditure of family departments) and finance (income and expenditure of enterprise departments), finance always refers to the income and expenditure of government departments or their activities. In other words, the word finance itself contains the meaning of "public revenue and expenditure" or "public revenue and expenditure activities". Therefore, public finance is by no means a simple replacement of the previous concept of finance, and the significance of public finance construction is by no means covered by this concept replacement.
Some people also correspond public finance with national finance and make attributive substitution. Where the concept of state finance was used in the past, it was replaced by public finance accordingly. However, a slight comparison between words and meanings reveals that state is a set concept. What we usually call the national budget refers to the sum of the central budget and local budgets at all levels. Similarly, national finance refers to the sum of the composition of central finance and local finance at all levels. Gong * * * is a qualitative concept. Public finance obviously refers to the nature of fiscal revenue and expenditure or fiscal revenue and expenditure activities. Since there are such differences in the meaning of words, it is definitely inappropriate to simply correspond the two and define public finance accordingly. Therefore, it is natural to be questioned.
More generally speaking, the production and construction finance corresponds to public finance, and then the public finance construction is explained by the withdrawal of fiscal expenditure from the production and construction field. In the era of planned economy, China's financial expenditure is regarded as the superiority of the socialist system because it is mainly invested in the field of production and construction, which is summarized as "production and construction finance" Under the condition of market economy, financial expenditure should be mainly invested in the public sector, so it is necessary to gradually reduce production and construction expenditure. This is of course a necessary move in line with the development direction of the market economy. However, reducing does not mean giving up. What needs to be reduced is limited to investment in competitive fields. In today's world, we can't find any country that doesn't inject any financial funds into the field of production and construction. The public function of the government cannot but include the production or provision of public facilities and infrastructure. The production or provision of public facilities and infrastructure must belong to the production and construction expenditure series. Whether it is productive expenditure or constructive expenditure, it does not exclude publicity and is not the corresponding concept of public expenditure. No one can deny that the government's expenditure on highway construction and water conservancy facilities construction is public expenditure. Can correspond to the production and construction expenditure (finance), only recurrent expenditure (finance) or consumer expenditure (finance). Furthermore, if the construction of public finance is only attributed to the adjustment of fiscal expenditure structure, rather than the fundamental change of the overall operation pattern including fiscal revenue, fiscal expenditure and fiscal policy, then the significance of public finance construction will be greatly reduced. It is precisely because of this misunderstanding that until today, some people still hold a negative attitude towards the construction of public finance. Therefore, adjusting the structure of fiscal expenditure is by no means the essence of public finance construction.
It seems very necessary to give a proper definition of public finance and make a blueprint for public finance construction accordingly. It is directly related to the direction and success or failure of China's financial reform and development. The question is, where to start?
Just like the conclusion about the orientation of market-oriented reform, the substantive significance of public finance construction obviously needs to be found in the traces of fiscal reform for more than 20 years. So far, with the process of market-oriented reform, China's financial operation pattern has undergone profound changes in at least three aspects:
As far as income is concerned, 1978, 86.8% of the national fiscal revenue comes from the contribution of state-owned economic units. If the contribution of the so-called quasi-state collective economic units is added, it will be an almost unified state-owned source structure. In 2003, the source structure of fiscal revenue has been "37-37": the contribution of state-owned economic units to fiscal revenue has declined to 29.5%, and the contribution of enterprises of various ownership, including collective enterprises, joint-stock enterprises, private enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises, as well as rural residents and urban residents has reached 70.5%. In addition, the latter's share of donations shows an increasing trend. According to the academic circles, our fiscal revenue is moving from "taking the wealth of the family" to "taking the wealth of everyone".
As far as expenditure is concerned, it is also 1978. In the total national fiscal expenditure, capital construction expenditure (formation of state-owned assets) accounts for 40.4%. In addition, funds used in state-owned economic units, such as increasing enterprise liquidity expenditure, tapping potential to transform funds and technology, making up losses and providing subsidies for state-owned enterprises, such as employee housing, medical services, children's schools, kindergartens and other collective welfare facilities, have become the bulk of the total fiscal expenditure. By 2003, the proportion of capital construction expenditure had dropped to 13.9%. If the abnormal infrastructure investment arranged by issuing additional national debt in that year is excluded, it will be less than 10%. At the same time, social security expenditures such as pension fund subsidies, basic living security for laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises, minimum living security for urban residents, pensions and social welfare relief funds rose to 17%, and expenditures on science, education, culture and health rose to 18.2%. In other words, our financial expenditure is changing from "doing our own thing" to "doing everyone's thing".
As far as policy orientation is concerned, in the era of planned economy, the basic performance of fiscal and taxation policies is "differential treatment". The tax burden of private enterprises is heavier than that of collective enterprises, and that of collective enterprises is heavier than that of state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the money of the state finance is mainly invested in state-owned economic units. Today, it is called "national treatment". In the arrangement of tax burden and expenditure input, all enterprises and residents are treated equally.
That is to say, over the years, in the overall operation pattern of China's finance, the contribution of state-owned economic units has been greatly reduced, and the contribution of other economic components has risen rapidly; The share of expenditure for state-owned economic units has been greatly reduced, and the expenditure covering the interests of various ownership economic units has increased rapidly; Policy arrangements aimed at restricting the development of non-public ownership economy and supporting the development of public ownership economy have decreased, while policy arrangements aimed at supporting various ownership economies have increased. All these changes, in a word, are concrete manifestations of the trend of public finance operation mode. All these changes, in the final analysis, are nothing more than that the foothold of fiscal revenue and expenditure operation has gradually expanded from mainly focusing on meeting the needs of state-owned economic units to meeting the needs of the whole society, and the coverage of fiscal revenue and expenditure benefits has gradually extended from enterprises and residents basically confined to cities to all enterprises and residents including cities and rural areas.
If we have to some extent regarded China's finance as state-owned finance and operated as the revenue and expenditure department in our own yard, the most fundamental change brought by market-oriented reform to China's financial operation pattern is that the revenue and expenditure department in our own yard has evolved into a revenue and expenditure department covering all members of society, so it should operate according to the rules and concepts of the public. In other words, in the past 20 years, even though we didn't put forward the concept of public finance at first, the road of financial reform and development has always been marked by public finance. The formation of the concept of "public finance" is only based on this, which promotes the previous exploration of "crossing the river by feeling the stones" to a conscious action to approach the goal of public finance. The direction of China's financial reform and development lies in publicity, and the marketization of economy will inevitably bring publicity, which is not only our basic summary of the past financial reform and development process, but also our basic understanding of the substantive significance of China's public finance construction.
It can be said that the construction of public finance in China should and must firmly grasp the basic objectives of public finance. Only by defining public finance from the perspective of publicity can we understand the profound changes in China's financial operation pattern in the past 20 years and usher in a set of financial system that is suitable for the socialist market economic system. Only by taking publicity as the construction direction of public finance and revolutionizing the whole financial system, including income, expenditure, policies and systems, can we highlight the wishes, needs and interests of the people in all aspects of financial work, and then integrate "building the party for the public and governing for the people" into the blood of the work of the party and the government.