Despite the hollow promises of the Iran regime’s officials from its president Ebrahim Raisi, who promised a better economic prospect and boom of 8 percent, to the minister of Ehsan Khandouzi who had claimed that inflation will decrease in the next year, regime experts say something else.
And one of the obvious facts of a collapsed economy is the regime’s decision to make up for the budget deficit out of the people’s pockets, which is based on a 60 percent increase in taxes.
The state-run daily Arman on January 27 criticized the regime’s budget plan and wrote: “The 2022-2023 budget is associated with uncollectible revenues, and current budgets that have increased, have fueled inflation. Construction budgets, which could serve as a safety valve to improve the economic situation, are also insignificant. There is no mention of the seventh plan, according to which the 2022-2023 budget was to be closed.”
And Reza Hosseini, member of the Parliamentary Committee on Industries and Mines, said in remarks published by the state-run daily Bahar News that the budget for 2022 also shows that next year people should see inflation and rising prices, and I think there will be so much pressure on people so that they will forget the debate about the stock market.”
“The outlook for next year’s economy is frightening,” he added.
Arman daily asked Farshad Momeni an economic expert, “will inflation and soaring prices decrease next year due to the government’s recent policies and decisions?” Momeni replied, “The claim that inflation will be reduced in next year’s budget is a scientifically invalid claim.”
In discussing the three main pillars of corruption that have implicated the regime’s government, he said: “Iran has been captured by a trilateral anti-development alliance. A pillar of this three-pronged alliance is the short-sighted rent-seeking government. The second pillar of unproductive groups includes rent-seekers, usurers, and brokers, and the third pillar is the promoters of vulgar market orientation.
“When important decision-making institutions take over the mafia kind approaches, they impose very heavy costs on the country’s economy. The Planning and Budget Organization says that an appendix of justice will be prepared for this budget by the order of the President. You have to make a misery attachment.”
Before that, with much fanfare, tRaisi issued a statement, published by the state-run news agency IRNA on November 25, 2021, in which he introduced the “facets of the works in the budget, based on justice” and claimed, “that the correct and fair system of allocating budgets in different parts of the country and proportion to the capacities and needs will advance the economic problems of the country in a direction that will eradicate absolute poverty.”
But the reality is that by this budget, as in the past, the 4 percent wealthy minority – regime’s elements – will become richer, and the majority will become poorer, and the country’s production will nosedive.
In an article entitled, “a costly avalanche is on the way,” the state-run daily Eghtesad Saramad wrote on January 27, 2022, “The creeping and imperceptible fever of the high prices has shivered the frail bodies of the wage-earners, especially the workers and the retirees, for some time.
“Not to include consumer prices on basic goods, VAT on all food and essential household needs, and finally, the increase in electricity bills based on the declared consumption pattern; these three components, which have gradually and unintentionally entered the field of workers’ lives in the form of government regulations, will increase the actual cost of living by the end of February.”
“Is this objective and tangible increase in the cost of living, basically calculated in the inflation basket of the Statistics Center of Iran?”
The regime’s economic experts dismiss the possibility of improving the economic situation and predict that next year poverty will increase, the country’s economic capacity will shrink, and unemployment and inflation will rise.
