I read that this plan was shelved by the Majlis, but after the early rejection, the plan is being reviewed again. In my view, its going to be a disaster to give out cash handouts instead of gasoline subsidy, for example. Inflation would rise and families already working hard to make ends would feel the burden right away. Not to mention that the middle class would be wiped out completly.
Those that are for the plan are saying that for state security matters, the budget must be freed from using so much resources on granting people cheap consumption. In my view, this logic fails, because the government is not good at handling the economy in the first place.
I was glad to hear that the plan was shelved, but reports like this one:
have started to flourish in IRI state media, making me wonder that the government is serious about actually going forward with this idea. The biggest opponent of such an idea, Larijani, the majles leader, has even started talking about ways to cut “down on popular consumption”.
Im not an economist, and I remember when I was in Iran, if there was something the government was not good at, was actually paying salaries and pensions in time.
