Improving the wellbeing of the people is a responsibility of the government, says an article in Beijing News. The following is an excerpt
As Premier Wen Jiabao said in his Government Work Report last Wednesday, the central government will this year increase its education investment from 107.6 billion yuan ($15.2 billion) last year to 156.2 billion yuan ($22 billion); the national finance will also raise the medical subsidy from 40 yuan per capita to 80 yuan; and the central finance will add 16.7 billion yuan to healthcare and 1.7 billion yuan to support the building of low-rent houses.
Last week, the suggestion on the deepening of administrative system reform was made public. From both the work report and the administrative system reform, we can draw the conclusion that we should establish a modern administrative system to tackle the problems concerning the livelihood of the people.
The government should put these problems high on their work agenda and not let the officials shun or turn a blind eye to them.
The government should shoulder responsibility and advances despite the difficulties. Thus the government needs to offer high-quality public services and protect social equality and justice.
The government should oversee the nation's wealth is distributed fairly. It should differentiate between public and private rights.
It should encourage and support social groups to play their roles. It should do away with complicated administrative procedures, and not try and govern everything, but promote self-governance of the society.
In addition, it should narrow the gap between the rich and poor, and see that social equality and justice is carried out. It should be impartial when formulating rules on wealth accumulation.
By offering basic public services, the government can let the rich work without distraction and the poor enough opportunities to move up the social ladder.
(China Daily March 10, 2008)