Parliament amends law on local self-government funding

Bravo! Here's an excerpt from something I wrote back on the 12th of June, regarding the same topic.

"Decentralising the budget would allow a fairer distribution of revenue, without redistributing wealth, per se. If individual municipalities were responsible for their own fiscal policies (i.e. providing welfare, basic infrastructure, policing etc.), then the money will be spent more fruitfully and efficiently, as naturally, each municipality would be more informed as to how to distribute revenue as opposed to some bloke sitting in Belgrade. Poorer municipalities (i.e. those in Sandzak and southern Serbia) would naturally require more revenue to be received from the Government in order to keep themselves sustainable, and those which have stronger industries and generally richer citizens (Nis, Novi Sad etc.) can garner enough revenue for themselves without Belgrade having to subsidise their budget too much, so the Federal Government won't be losing out. Hence, a lot of the tax can be redistributed straight to the municipalities, minimising the chance of socialist-styled big governments bungling it all up through their own redistribution, possibly saving the economy in the short-term and providing a back-bone for a better economic future. Win-win."

One of the reasons why countries such as the US, Canada and Australia became economically prosperous and wealthy (besides the prevalence of free enterprise) was because of their state-systems, which granted certain powers to local states regarding healthcare, police, infrastructure etc. Hopefully, the same principle might induce some increased prosperity in Serbia; I mean, for example, the municipality of Novi Pazar would have a better idea as to how to spend budgetary funds on projects in Novi Pazar than some federal-level big-shots in Belgrade. Common sense, really.

This is a great economic move by the Serbian government.

@stefan:
Many states in the US, Canada and Australia have a larger population and territory than Serbia as a whole.

I see this as a risky experiment and I haven't seen very strong arguments in favor of it. Let's see how it works but keep in mind that it may very well fail.

Stefan,

Yes this is a great step forward. But is Belgrade getting enough? we have to stop Djilas cutting all the beautiful trees and selling them
to China or Germany. Or is even this money not going into the municipal budget?
Petar

Bravo! Here's an excerpt from something I wrote back on the 12th of June, regarding the same topic.

"Decentralising the budget would allow a fairer distribution of revenue, without redistributing wealth, per se. If individual municipalities were responsible for their own fiscal policies (i.e. providing welfare, basic infrastructure, policing etc.), then the money will be spent more fruitfully and efficiently, as naturally, each municipality would be more informed as to how to distribute revenue as opposed to some bloke sitting in Belgrade. Poorer municipalities (i.e. those in Sandzak and southern Serbia) would naturally require more revenue to be received from the Government in order to keep themselves sustainable, and those which have stronger industries and generally richer citizens (Nis, Novi Sad etc.) can garner enough revenue for themselves without Belgrade having to subsidise their budget too much, so the Federal Government won't be losing out. Hence, a lot of the tax can be redistributed straight to the municipalities, minimising the chance of socialist-styled big governments bungling it all up through their own redistribution, possibly saving the economy in the short-term and providing a back-bone for a better economic future. Win-win."

One of the reasons why countries such as the US, Canada and Australia became economically prosperous and wealthy (besides the prevalence of free enterprise) was because of their state-systems, which granted certain powers to local states regarding healthcare, police, infrastructure etc. Hopefully, the same principle might induce some increased prosperity in Serbia; I mean, for example, the municipality of Novi Pazar would have a better idea as to how to spend budgetary funds on projects in Novi Pazar than some federal-level big-shots in Belgrade. Common sense, really.

This is a great economic move by the Serbian government.

Stefan,

Yes this is a great step forward. But is Belgrade getting enough? we have to stop Djilas cutting all the beautiful trees and selling them
to China or Germany. Or is even this money not going into the municipal budget?
Petar

@stefan:
Many states in the US, Canada and Australia have a larger population and territory than Serbia as a whole.

I see this as a risky experiment and I haven't seen very strong arguments in favor of it. Let's see how it works but keep in mind that it may very well fail.