Study On Debts And Obligations Of Government In Villages And Towns In East China

In recent years,the rising debts and obligations of government in villages and towns has greatly affected the routine operation of the local government,the local economic development and the intimate relationship between the Party and its people,causing some social unstableness.It has become one of the focus of the society.Without an immediate handling,it will certainly cause the crisis in finance and the governmental credit,and then affecting the sustainable,healthy and stable development of the rural economy and the local authority.In this article,by applying certain related theories in public finance and institutional economics,the author tries to locate the source of this debt problem and its solution from the perspective of theory.After a careful study of the debt theory of the local government,the author redefines some basic concepts involved in the debt problem by combining the financial characteristics and reality of the local towns.The author takes Huangdao district of Qingdao city as an example. In accordance with the basic strategy of putting forward,analyzing and solving problems,the author makes a thorough analysis of the local towns' debt by using some reliable data,including the history of the debt in the towns' governments, its present scale,its structure and purpose,and its source of funding.By estimating the risk involved in the debt of the towns' government,the author further analyzes the undesirable consequences of over-debt,and then puts forward a solution in preventing and lessening the debt problem by illustrating the source of the debt problem in financial system,administrative management and the supervision of land fund.Through investigation and analysis,the author summarizes the three main factors that cause the heavy debt to the towns' government.One factor lies in the financial management system,including(1) a conspicuous conflict in the income and expenses of the towns' finance with an insufficient financial income and an increasing pressure in financial expenses;(2) an imperfect system of tax distribution with the disunity in financial authority and administrative authority which causes ineffectiveness in the transfer payment system and then the debt problem in the towns' government;(3) an incomplete financial supervision and management system which leads to an increasing debt scale.The second factor is in the administrative management,including(1) the inconsistent function between the government and the market and between governments of different levels,(2) an overstaffed organ system in the towns' government,causing a sharp increase in the towns' financial expenses;(3) an unscientific governmental assessing system,causing some problems in the local officials' decision-making. The third factor is in the supervision of land fund,including(1) selling land illegally and running into debt by over spending "the second finance" derived from the money by selling land illegally;(2) that the towns' government deliberately engrosses the rural collective compensation funds without timely land compensation funds.Through the above analysis,the author thinks that in order to solve fundamentally the debt problem of the towns' government,focus should be paid in two aspects:the short-term measures and the long-term effective mechanism. The former one includes:(1) establishing crisis consciousness and realizing the serious consequences of the over-debt problem of the towns' government,and then setting up the leader's debt-solving responsibility system;(2) taking practical and effective measures to solve the present debt problem according to the principle of "refraining new debt,figuring out old debt,defining responsibility,handling by classification and gradually solving";(3) strengthening the construction of financial source and increasing the towns' finance;(4) promoting comprehensive budget and intensifying the supervision and restriction of the budget;(5) constructing the alarming system of the towns' debt,and predicting and preventing the management system of financial risks; (6)increase strength of township reform.And the latter one mainly refers to a series of system innovation,including perfecting the management system of the towns' finance,reforming the management system of the towns' administration and regulating the supervision of rural land fund.