Reflection of Structural Developments in the Islamic Republic's Government in the Annual Budget

The annual budget of countries serves as a suitable mirror for observing and measuring the priorities and programs of a government. Money speaks, revealing the location, amount, and manner of its consumption, whether the consumer is an individual, a group, or an institution like the government. Furthermore, individuals, groups, and institutions expose themselves to public scrutiny by spending or not spending money in places where they have made promises or commitments. The numbers in the budget can represent structural and institutional transformations in a government, particularly in six areas: Changes in military budget: Over the past thirty years, the budget of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which sees its mission as fighting the U.S. and its regional allies with an aggressive approach, has ballooned. For instance, in the 1394 budget (2015-2016), while the budget for the Army's Joint Staff remained unchanged from 1393 (2014-2015) and was generally contractionary, the budget for the IRGC's Joint Staff increased from 11.5 trillion tomans to 17.5 trillion tomans (about 30%). Additionally, the military budget of the country rose from 21 trillion tomans to 28 trillion tomans (about 32%). This two billion dollar budget increase occurs at a time when the country's oil revenues are expected to be 40 to 50 percent lower. This increase reflects the escalation of regional challenges for the Islamic Republic. The budget for the Ministry of Intelligence, one of the 16 security agencies of this regime, rose to 2.28 trillion tomans in 1394. Given the significant influence of the IRGC over the Ministry of Intelligence (in terms of personnel, most of whom are former IRGC members, and in terms of strategy, where no distancing from the IRGC's strategies has been observed), the budgets of security agencies in Iran are largely serving military institutions' programs. Changes in infrastructure investment budgets: The level of investment in infrastructure and development budgets indicates the extent of foresight and investment in improving people's lives and the nature of the government-people relationship. The percentage of national budgets allocated to infrastructure is one of the best indicators of measuring the 'good governance' index. For example, the Islamic Republic's development budget has dropped to about 5% of the national budget (48 trillion tomans out of 838 trillion tomans) following a decrease in government oil revenues. Development budgets are usually the first to be cut or eliminated by authoritarian and corrupt regimes in times of resource scarcity. Changes in foundational service budgets such as education and health: Despite a slight increase in university budgets, the budget for Tehran University in 1394 (the highest compared to other universities) is 639 billion tomans, about 200 million dollars. The budgets for Sharif, Shiraz, and National Universities are around 200 billion tomans, about 60 million dollars. The total proposed budget for universities is 5.9 trillion tomans, about 1.7 billion dollars. Compare these figures with the budgets of similar-sized universities in other countries and the 10 trillion tomans budget allocated by the Islamic Republic for 'target countries' (likely Syria and Lebanon), which is spent on military intervention and providing rents to allies in these countries. This figure is only the visible part of such budgets. The costs of the Quds Force, which is said to rely mainly on drug trafficking, smuggling various electronic goods, and government contracts, have never been disclosed. Another example in these services is the 400 million toman (120 thousand dollar) budget for drug prevention, which seems laughable. Compare this with the budget for the Globalization Studies Center (9.6 billion tomans) and the Imam Khomeini Institute (15 billion tomans), which provide no services to the Iranian people other than political propaganda for the government. Eliminable budgets: Eliminable budgets are those whose removal would not create any problems for the people. For example, eliminating the over 1 trillion toman budget for state radio and television would not create any issues for the Iranian people; rather, it would save them from lies, eulogizing, and televised confessions (their professional staff could work in private radio and television stations, which would need to be licensed). The budgets for the Guardian Council (80 billion tomans), the Supreme Council of Iranians Abroad (21 billion tomans), the Expediency Discernment Council (30.25 billion tomans), and thousands of billions of tomans for religious institutions, along with the exemption of religious institutions from paying service costs like water, electricity, and gas, can be easily eliminated. However, the religious government first reduces or cuts public and development service budgets and may eventually turn to these eliminable budgets. Due to the existence of these wasteful budgets, the development budget of the country is about 5% of the total budget. Eliminable budgets are essentially the cost that people pay for the religious nature of the government. The more the share of a country's current budget comes from natural resources, the less the government needs to interact with the people, and the more it increases rent-seeking. Conversely, a government whose budget is funded by taxes strives to maintain a more direct relationship with the people (through accountability and oversight), and the possibility of distributing rents decreases. For example, in the Islamic Republic, where the government derives up to 80% of its resources from oil, gas, petrochemicals, and mines, taxes play a minimal role in the budget, and the government is neither accountable nor subject to oversight. The decrease in oil revenues in 1393 (2014-2015) has led the government to reduce the share of oil revenues in the 1394 budget. Pressure for tax payments from institutions under the leader's supervision has begun, and some of these institutions have announced that they will pay taxes (the Executive Headquarters of Imam's Order), and value-added tax has also increased in some businesses. Oil and its byproducts' revenues in 1394 are projected to be 71 trillion tomans, about 7.8% lower than the 77 trillion tomans in 1393. All these actions have been taken under emergency conditions, and it is unclear if they will remain with increased oil revenues. If these emergency conditions persist and the share of oil in government revenues decreases, one can expect that the relationship between the government and business owners will also change to some extent.