Agricultural giant since 1983

Chapter 182

"Mr. Lin, this is Pei Yougen. He knows the situation in the village well. If you have any questions, just ask him directly!" When doing research, you can't just rush into a stranger's house and ask, it's hard to tell the truth, so Li Lei took him to Pei Yougen's house. He started raising Hailan layer chickens very early, and he knew Li Lei too, so he would definitely tell the truth.

"Uncle, you're here, I'll pour you some water!" Today happened to be the weekend, and Pei Xiaohong was studying at home. When she saw Li Lei coming, she hurriedly got up to work.

"Xiaohong, Mr. Lin graduated from Peking University and studied abroad. You have to work hard and strive to study in Peking University in the future." Pei Xiaohong will give the report card to Li Lei after the exam results come out every semester Look, I get full marks every year, and it is really possible to go to Peking University.

"Yougen, Mr. Lin specializes in research on rural issues. I want to ask you some questions today. Don't worry, just say whatever you want!" Li Lei first dispelled Pei Yougen's worries, otherwise he really didn't know Dare to tell the truth, after all, the issues Lin Yifu wants to understand are too sensitive.

"What does Mr. Lin want to know?" Pei Yougen was a little disappointed. He thought that Lin Yifu was a central cadre who came to make an unannounced visit. If that was the case, then he would have more to say.

But to be honest, Lin Yifu has much more influence than ordinary cadres. He is now a high-level think tank, and he has a lot of say in the central government's policies related to rural areas.

"I want to know, how is your life now compared to previous years? What are the difficulties? What is the biggest difficulty?" Justin Yifu Lin asked, taking out a small notebook to record.

At this time, Pei Xiaohong just handed over the water, and Li Lei took it and thanked her, pretending to want to eat August melons, and asked her to pick two.

This little girl is already very sensible, and letting her listen to Pei Yougen's family's difficulties is not necessarily a good thing, it will easily put a heavy burden on her, so let's send her away temporarily.

When Pei Xiaohong went out, Pei Yougen also dug up the receipts for paying various taxes and fees last year, and showed them to Lin Yifu one by one, "This is a note for paying public grain. One mu of land is about a hundred catties. We The family paid more than 600 catties. This is a note for three mentions and five reunifications, and my family paid 82 yuan three."

Li Lei added on the side, "This is equivalent to nearly two months' wages of an ordinary unit cadre in Heyang County. It is a heavy burden for ordinary farmers, and many people in their village cannot afford it."

"If I didn't raise chickens, I wouldn't be able to afford it. Now I can afford it, but every year when the money is collected, relatives and friends come to borrow money. If you don't borrow it, it will hurt your feelings. If you borrow it, it won't be that much money. And I don’t know when I can come back! So every year around this time, I have to go out and hide for a few days.”

Pei Yougen sighed, he used to have troubles when he was poor, but now that he is a little more prosperous, he still has troubles, and it seems that there are more of them.

"Now I don't have to worry about eating, but there are still few places to come to pay. If the year is bad, if you pay the public grain and reserve, you will have no money to buy fertilizers and pesticides. If you don't apply fertilizers and pesticides, you won't be able to harvest much crops. , life in the coming year will definitely be difficult, and it will be even more difficult if you meet a family who spends money on studying."

"Tuition is not too expensive now, right?" Justin Yifu Lin interjected.

"Now our elementary school tuition and miscellaneous fees are about six or seven yuan a semester, which is not very heavy, but there are other burdens. The cost of teaching materials is about ten yuan, and buying homework books, pens, and erasers costs another ten yuan a semester." Li Lei explained from the side.

"In addition to these, part of the teacher's salary in the school is also borne by the students. It is called the private teacher's overall management fee, which is evenly distributed to each student, and there are several yuan. Some villages cannot afford this money. You can only go outside to work, and the school is so deserted!"

In the past, the salaries of teachers in village-run primary schools were paid by the commune, and basically every village had a school. After the production was contracted to households, the source of this expenditure disappeared, and a large number of village-run primary schools disappeared for a while.

"Xiaohong School needs to build a house this year, and the money is shared equally by the whole village. Our family paid [-] yuan." Pei Yougen took a puff of dry cigarette, "To be honest, I am willing to pay the money, after all, it is for my own dolls. Well, but there are some apportionments that I don’t want to do, but I still have to pay them!”

"Nowadays there is a popular saying in rural areas called 'the first tax is light, the second tax is heavy, and the third tax is a bottomless pit'. It is about this kind of thing. The first tax refers to the agricultural tax, which is not much, and the second tax refers to three mentions and five unifications. It is heavier than the agricultural tax, but there is a certain amount after all, and the apportionment depends entirely on the mood of the local cadres!" Li Lei helped explain.

"Some money should really be spent, such as buying cement and renting machinery to repair a broken canal, or repairing roads in the village. Most of these people will not object. There are also some good things, but it is hard to say that farmers should not bear them. For example, the chemical plant I am contracting now was built by apportionment from the people of the whole county.”

In "The Name of the People", Li Dakang builds roads in Jinshan County and asks the people in the county to apportion five yuan each. Road construction must be a good thing, but some people can't afford the money, and in the end they forced their lives. If it wasn't for Yi Xuexue and Wang Dalu to help him cover, Li Dakang would be over.

"The other part is that some cadres are purely seeking their own personal gain. Sometimes the reasons for apportionment sound ridiculous. Yougen, please tell Mr. Lin about the apportionment at the end of last year in your village!" Li Lei voted to encourage eyes.

Pei Yougen got up and went to the door to look around, but he didn't see anyone passing by, so he explained the whole story. Last year, when Chinese New Year was approaching, the cadres of their village used the excuse that other villages had invited theater troupes and film teams. Let's have a good time too. , So forcibly ask each family to collect money.

In the end, the expenses of the Qing opera troupe and film team obviously did not match the total apportioned amount, and the village did not give an explanation. However, during the Chinese New Year, several cadres bought new items in their homes.

This situation has even continued in the future, and many cadres' methods of doing things are getting rougher and rougher. When Li Lei went home to visit relatives during his Ph. The family collected 50 yuan and said they were going to ask the Dragon King for rain.

Li Lei was dumbfounded when he heard it, and even wondered if he had heard something wrong. Fortunately, this guy was reported by the villagers in the end, otherwise the money must have fallen into his own pocket.

Pei Yougen continued to talk about all kinds of wonderful apportionments in his village or other villages, and Lin Yifu's eyes widened. Before he came to investigate, he expected to see how hard the farmers lived, but he never expected that the root of the hard work came from these places.

In addition to the agricultural tax, three mentions and five unifications, and apportionment, there is another heavier burden on farmers, that is, two workers—voluntary workers and labor accumulation workers.

Rural volunteer labor refers to a kind of labor service that farmers are required to undertake free of charge when the township people's government organizes afforestation, flood control, road construction, school building repairs and other public welfare undertakings in the countryside.

Labor accumulation labor refers to a kind of labor service that is organized by the township people's government to carry out basic construction of farmland water conservancy and afforestation in rural areas, and requires farmers to undertake free of charge.

According to the "Regulations on the Management of Farmers' Fees and Labor Services", calculated on the basis of standard working days, each rural labor force undertakes 5-10 voluntary workers and 10-12 labor-accumulated workers each year, and the labor-accumulated workers should be mainly used during the slack period.

That is to say, farmers have to set aside half a month or nearly a month every year to bring their own dry food to complete unpaid labor. If you don't want to do it, you have to pay.

And this has to be under the condition that the local cadres abide by the regulations. If you encounter a few unruly ones, the time for work will be longer, and the fines you will have to pay for not working will be more.

Isn't this the ancient corvee?Justin Yifu Lin's words swirled around, but he still didn't say it in the end. Listening to Pei Yougen's recounting the tragic consequences of several villagers in his village because they couldn't bear the burden, Justin Yifu Lin sighed again and again.

After leaving Pei Yougen's house, both of them felt very heavy, and then chatted about the solution. Justin Yifu Lin is not the kind of person who doesn't eat fireworks. He knows that to maintain the country's normal administrative management of the countryside, there must be financial expenditures. However, given the current income level of the country, it is impossible to cancel the "three mentions and five regulations".

Because if this is the case, it will inevitably cause a large number of grassroots cadres to lose their jobs, and the consequences are far more serious than continuing to collect "three mentions and five reunifications".

Could it be that some people really think that the abolition of township-level institutions is a good thing?Once there is a gap in power, someone will inevitably fill it up. In this way, China will return to the history of imperial power not going to the countryside; what about the laid-off grassroots cadres?The matter of Li Zicheng is still written in the history books.

He asked Li Lei, and Li Lei could only answer in this way, "Wait slowly, wait until the international economic level rises, and when the agricultural tax is not collected, and the three mentions and five reunifications can support the grassroots fiscal expenditures, these burdens should be cancelled!"

"I'm afraid it will take a long time. How long do you expect?" Although Lin Yifu is full of confidence in China's future, he still feels that this is a difficult task to complete.

"In terms of economic development alone, it is estimated that it will take more than ten years to meet the criteria for abolishing these, but it is easy to add a new tax, but it is very difficult to cancel it. If no one promotes it, it will be even slower. Considering it comprehensively, 20 Years should do the job!"

In 2004, the National People's Congress voted overwhelmingly to abolish the "Agricultural Tax Regulations" from January 2006, 1, canceling the tax on agricultural specialty products other than tobacco leaves, and all agricultural taxes. The imperial grain tax that has lasted for thousands of years has finally come to an end.

Compared with before the rural tax and fee reform, farmers across the country have reduced their burden by about 1250 billion yuan per year, and the per capita burden has been reduced by about 140 yuan. At the same time, financial arrangements have been used to support the consolidation and improvement of the rural tax and fee reform.

In the process of achieving this goal, there are several characters worth remembering. The most typical one is Li Changping who wrote a letter to Mr. Zhu to describe the current situation in the countryside—farmers are really miserable, the countryside is really poor, and agriculture is really dangerous.

"20 years is too long. Before that, is there any way to help farmers reduce their burden?" Justin Yifu Lin felt very uncomfortable when he thought that farmers like Pei Yougen would still have to bear a heavy burden for 20 years.

"There are two ways to reduce the burden. One is to cancel the charges. This is obviously impossible at present. At best, the unreasonable charges can only be reduced as much as possible." things.

"The second is to increase the income of farmers, so that the annual expenditure of several hundred yuan is no longer an unbearable burden for them; you see, the annual expenditure is about the same, but Li Xinfu does not think it has much impact, because He makes ten times, ten times that amount every year."

"Development is the best way to solve the problem! I don't think the workers who work in your factory will find these expenses unbearable!" Justin Yifu Lin nodded, which is considered to have approved his idea.

"The number of township enterprises across the country has increased to more than 800 million this year. These enterprises can provide a large number of jobs, not only solve the problem of idle labor in rural areas, but also help local farmers increase their income! At the same time, the taxes they pay have also increased. The fiscal revenue of the local government, the government has money, although it cannot completely avoid apportionment and other unreasonable charges, but it can be reduced, which is also to help farmers reduce the burden!"

In fact, the burden on farmers in the 80s was not particularly heavy. The 90s was the most difficult time for farmers. At that time, in some places, the sum of the three mentions and five unifications and apportionment could reach thousands of yuan a year. At the same time, township enterprises also closed down one after another, and a large number of farmers They lost the opportunity to make money nearby, forcing them to go to the coast to work.

Thus, the two terms left-behind children and left-behind elderly were born. This phenomenon has not changed when Li Lei traveled through time.

With the deepening of urbanization, resources and opportunities are concentrated in big cities, and the countryside is becoming more and more depressed. If you stay in the countryside, you will definitely not starve to death, but if you want a better life, most people can only go to the city to find opportunities. Therefore, there are more and more left-behind children and left-behind elderly people.

Only industry can provide employment to farmers and provide farmers with continuously increasing sources of income. Justin Yifu Lin had such an idea in his mind, but he still needs to see more things to elaborate on this sentence .

"Come on, I've seen something about the burden on the peasants, now go and see your factory, let me know how the township enterprises can help the peasants!"

"The nearest one here is the agricultural machinery factory. You happen to be a high-achieving student who has studied agricultural machinery. Give me some advice when you visit later!" Li Lei greeted, and Xu Zhengyang started the car to go to Shifeng Agricultural Machinery heading towards the factory.

After bumping all the way to the gate of the factory, there were crowds of farmers queuing up to pay and wait for their cars. Lin Yifu chatted with them happily, and then followed Li Lei into the factory.

"Mr. Lin, this is the director of the agricultural machinery factory." Li Lei pointed to an old man and said.

"Yo, you also hired a foreign factory manager!" Lin Yifu once again felt his eyes opened.

(End of this chapter)