Analysis: The Bottom Line

Policies, prospects, priorities and perceptions so imperfectly explained in the 2020-21 fiscal budget President Hassan Rouhani presented on Sunday are yet another reminder of the truth that the government’s economic  footprint can be seen all over the place. 
And this is bad for our economy in more ways than one. Proponents and opponents of centralized economies (on the verge of extinction) have often been quoted as saying that about 80% of Iran’s economy are under state and government control. 
It is the government and state apparatus that decides almost everything in this country of over 80 million people. And the results are astonishing. For each and everything, economic or otherwise, the government and its inefficient agencies should be at the forefront. 
A vivid and dismaying example of how things can go in the wrong direction is the controversial multibillion-dollar cash subsidy policy crafted in late 2010 by the government of former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 
In the catastrophic case of cash subsidies, better known as handouts, the government says it pays money to almost 70 million people every month. 
Put together, the sum total of the two bands of subsidies and cost of living allowances (before and after the latest gasoline price rise), as stipulated in the budget bill, would be $5.6 billion.