Higher Taxes and More Police Inspections Will Spark Economic Growth in Russia, Siluanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 10 – In one of the clearest displays of Orwellian logic ever, Moscow analyst Andrey Nalgin says, Anton Siluanov, Russia’s finance minister, has reversed all traditional economic logic and declared that raising taxes and increasing police action will lead to a dramatic improvement in Russia’s economic performance. 

            Siluanov certainly owes a debt to Orwell and New Speak logic, Nalgin suggests, given that he says the taxes taken from the population in the first half of 2019 and which depressed the economy will be re-inserted in the second half by officials and then the economy will take off (a-nalgin.livejournal.com/1679200.html reposted at newizv.ru/news/economy/10-04-2019/chistyy-oruell-ministr-siluanov-obeschal-uskorit-ekonomiku-s-pomoschyu-politsii).

                “For those who don’t understand humor,” Nalgin says, he “will explain in simplest terms: the chief financial officer of Russia has declared that raising the tax burden and this in the entire world is a step which reduces economic growth will in Russia accelerate the rise of the economy because stat officials will successfully and effectively invest them.”

            Or to put it in even simpler terms than that for anyone who still doesn’t understand what is going on, he continues, Siluanov is insisting that “an increase in taxes will boost the economy, and state investments are more effective than private ones,” a declaration of an “almost Orwellian kind such as “’war is peace’” and “’freedom is slavery.”

            But instead of returning to the real world, the Russian finance minister compounded this 1984 logic: He said that the law enforcement agencies will also boost the economy by becoming even more active in the life of firms in order to ensure that President Putin’s orders are implemented and there are created “the necessary conditions of comfort for our entrepreneurs.”