Putin denies budget cutting

There will be no budget cutting, but the government should determine focuses of spending reduction, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin stated in an interview to Associated Press. “The sequestration is a harsh reduction of all expenses without exception by a specific amount, disregarding the priorities. This happens sometimes in economics around the world and is linked with particular sharp fluctuations of the economic situation and negative trends in economy. This is not the situation we’re currently in, we don’t have a minus, but a slight growth in comparison with the past year. But the issue is that we supposed a bigger growth; that means that the budget income should be larger. Initially we planned to spend more funds on different programs,” the Russian leader noted. In his opinion, “the forecast is currently a bit different, the economy grows, but slower, incomes are going to be lesser, which means we’ll have to spend less and more carefully”. “This is not a sequestration, but we should make another economic development forecast and on its basis, as well as on the basis of the day-to-day realities, plan the spending, defining the priorities. I guess we’ll have to cut some expenses. But this should be proposed by the government in the course of work on the budget,” the President said. Putin noted that, if the spending is not cut, Russia would follow suit of countries that amount huge gaps and accumulate the national debt. “If we do nothing, in 2014 we’ll have a particular budget gap, in the following year it will increase, and we will have problems. Since we are responsible people and since we want to feel confident about ourselves, maybe, more modest at some life stage, but confident, knowing that nothing will crash, explode or go into pieces, then we should act carefully and professionally,” the head of state underlined.