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In the view of decades later, when His Majesty Zhao Gang's actions are worthy of praise, the difficulties they have to overcome are great, especially when the government encounters a financial crisis. The first person to jump out and curse is the new Minister of Finance Tang Yueliang.

"Your Majesty, if you mess around again, you will spend all the money in the treasury."

His Majesty the Emperor did not express any expression of such accusation, because what Tang Yueliang said made sense, and he was still eating. He signaled the servant to take a glass of water to the old minister, and His Majesty exhaled a sharp stinger from his mouth.

"No one in our family has acted for a long time, so let him act enough this time!"

If the old minister heard this, he would probably enjoy the one-stop funeral service directly. Fortunately, the emperor's voice was much smaller than that of the old minister, and the servants also abide by their duties, thus avoiding a cabinet crisis.

The reason for Zhao Gang's proposal is that the basic requirement of being a modern country is

The people's recognition of the country, the level of literacy among the people, and the smooth access to knowledge among the people.

These three parts are the minimum requirements of a modern country. As for whether to achieve parliamentary democracy, it is not important for the people to abide by laws and regulations one by one. This is like the appearance and performance of the American car is superior to that of the old car in China. Therefore, people desperately introduced the appearance (various systems) of the American car, but completely ignored the serious defects in the power and territory of the old car (national identity, national literacy, and the passage for the people to acquire knowledge).

Therefore, before modern democracy, China must first prepare the basic requirements for modernization. In the wilderness era, American citizens mainly gained knowledge in libraries. The accumulation and precipitation of knowledge in the old continent basically ran to American libraries. This is much richer than the only four books and five classics in Chinese private schools!

The national super library, local libraries, super regional industrial centers, and super national laboratories have a great impact on Americans. Just look at the Edison Wright brothers. You should know that a national super library and a national super laboratory have much stronger functions than one or two elite troops...

In Zhao Gang's plan, not only will each city build a municipal library, but also a county and township must build a library, and even a town needs to build a recommended library. This expense is too high, not tens of millions of dollars, and in the future, hundreds of millions of dollars will be invested every year. This money is so amazing!

If this matter is not under Tang Yueliang's control, then Tang Yueliang will be lazy to make a big fuss here, but the problem is that he has to pay the money here!

The problem of "library" belongs to cultural undertakings, so the government naturally needs to increase its budget investment in cultural undertakings. Although the government's responsibilities were formulated, science, education, culture and health were all written into it. Since "teaching" belongs to the government's responsibilities, it is confirmed that the municipal government will pay this huge expense, so there will be big problems in the government's budget formulation.

In 1905, China's GDP reached 750 yuan, which was equivalent to 62.5 yuan at a 1:12 exchange rate with the pound, accounting for 18% of the world economy.

The proportion of industrial production of each power in the world is:

China - 18% (output value of 750 yuan.1914 data)

Germany - 27% (output value of 112.5 billion yuan)

UK - 24% (output value of RMB 100 billion)

United States - 12% (output value of 500 Chinese Yuan)

France - 6% (output value of 250 CNY)

Russia - 3.6% (output value of 150 CNY)

Note: The total industrial output value of the world is 280 billion yuan.

In terms of finance, in 1905, China's fiscal revenue was RMB 1.2 billion

The fiscal expenditure was RMB 1.17 billion. Is so much money not enough? Zhao Gang carefully raised his own questions to avoid the old minister being sent to first aid.

Tang Yueliang kept his mood and made up one by one

Among them, the expenditure on culture, education and science and technology reached 3 yuan, accounting for 25% of the total expenditure.

Administrative expenses and other expenses are 2 yuan, accounting for 16 places of total expenditure

Capital construction and government investment of RMB 340 million, accounting for 30.1% of total expenditure | 220 million

National defense expenditure was RMB 420 million, accounting for 32% of total expenditure.

After listing these expenses, the old Minister of Finance said breathlessly:

"This is not counting other expenditures. Government expenditures have become deficits. If I come to another big library, then I can't make money even if I have any solutions. Whether the government is democratic or not, money is the bottom line. If you don't have money, you can't do anything. And the government's money is taxpayer's money.

) Prevent "?Squeeze "education"?

Otherwise, there will be only tax increases. Your Majesty the Emperor, do you like tax increases?"

Tax increases, just kidding, as the country with the lowest national tax burden in the world, there is not no room for tax increases, but tax increases are now subject to argumentation and voting. If the government announces that it is necessary to build a new large library and then increase the burden on taxpayers, the proposal will not be passed at all, and no taxpayer will agree to this proposal.

It is even more difficult to pay attention to foreign capital. As the country with the lowest national tax burden in the world, it is also the country with the highest non-national tax burden in the world. The tax burden level is more than five times that of domestic enterprises, especially those of resource mining type enterprises, the tax burden level has reached a terrifying level. In addition, which enterprises have no money to make money, and naturally no one will do business without money, and in turn, they will not get more money.

During the founding period, the government's government responsibilities were national defense, government law scope, customs, etc. The budget was mainly national defense. As for the huge budget for education, it was Yung Wing's role, otherwise it would be very few. Others did not fall within the scope of government responsibilities, and of course they could not require budgets. This is the concept of small government, which is also possible to say that it is anarchism.

In 1894, was it in the natural economy? There is a theory that only small governments can manage, and corruption is less likely to occur, and efficiency can be maintained. This is the origin of the idea of ​​small governments. First, reduce the government's responsibilities to no less, and then adopt the government system to place unnecessary affairs to the local government, so the government's responsibilities are very few.

With the great progress of China in the next decade, many things were publicized, and the government's power gradually expanded, and personal power declined year-on-year. Zhao Gang began to realize that the power he originally granted to the government could no longer meet the needs of the government. More than 3,000 years of Chinese regimes have been made. History has proved that once the government is established, its power will automatically expand. In the expansion stage, this society will continue to progress until it is gradually concentrated. When it is concentrated at a certain stage, the government will control the vast majority of the resources of this society. Then there is the decline of this society.

Therefore, it was very important to limit the government's power at the beginning to a strict scope. While being subject to the constitutional framework, Zhao Gang was satisfied with the strong restrictions on government power by the constitution. Zhao Gang did not need unlimited rights, what Zhao Gang needed was a flexible and harmonious legal society.

As we all know, the role of the government is to deal with public affairs that individuals cannot do, and should be a service agency rather than a management agency. After all, no one wants to be "managed" and "managed". So, when a country is founded and when an individual begins to transfer power to public institutions, which power is the first choice?

Of course it is education. The budget for education is actually the result of the efforts of Zhao Gang, Zhang and Yung Wing. In fact, it is not popular among most officials. It is a non-profit investment, that is, government investment, and the people benefit. "A century-old plan is based on education." Children who invest 300 million yuan each year do not receive nine years of compulsory education, which allows thousands of universities and countless talents across the country to be strongly improved, and the Chinese nation will truly "prosper and develop".

These things are things that ordinary people cannot control, and they are entrusted to the government to manage. If the government cannot complete them, how can they have the attitude to increase taxes? Zhao Gang asked himself that he was not that thick-skinned. It seems that he had to find a way to do money. Establishing an education foundation is a way, but this is not very useful for far away water and cannot quench his thirst.

Zhao Gang asked tentatively:

"How about this, I will take the lead in donating some of the money, establishing a library foundation, and then holding a charity party to see if the rich can make more donations, so that the government will be responsible for blocking the remaining holes."

Tang Yueliang sighed, his face not as excited as before

"Your Majesty, don't donate any more. Don't you know how much money you have donated in the past few years? Even if you can make money, you can also bear the government's finance for a few years. If the finance is doing this, when you have no money, then I, the Minister of Finance, will not be fooled."

Zhao Gang knew that although this old fox looked debilitating, there were still many ideas in his head, so there would definitely be a way to solve the problem of this big library. So Zhao Gang, the young fox, had a painful expression, and the hero's attitude of cutting his arm, said firmly:
Chapter completed!