The liberalization of household registration in small cities is of little significance.

In order to help farmers obtain equal rights, it is necessary to abolish identity discrimination specifically against farmers, which is a kind of progress. In order to support agricultural development more effectively, it is necessary to identify farmers, which is a greater progress.

The reform of the household registration system is to establish a population registration system which is relatively simple to operate, does not contain identity discrimination, and can provide accurate information for social and economic management. The release of the State Council's opinions on the reform of the household registration system is a big step in this direction. The biggest highlight of this reform opinion is the elimination of discrimination against farmers in the previous household registration management, and provides a clear idea for cleaning up some unreasonable provisions in the current laws and regulations. In my opinion, in order to implement this reform opinion in practice, we should grasp the following issues.

Household registration basis: can it be more simplified

In the long run, the core of the new system should be the place of residence population registration system, that is, a person registered as a person in which city or region, the main standard depends on where he or she lives. More specifically, as long as a person enjoys housing in a city (whether renting or owning property rights), and the construction of the housing is in line with the government's planning, and the structure, area and quality of the housing meet the government's standards, then the elements ": housing, employment and income, which is more complex; the" points system "is more complex and not very scientific. This requires urban management to make a good housing development plan. The house is built for people to live in, people live in, how can you not give him a hukou? A retired billionaire buys a house in Shanghai. You don't give him a hukou? It doesn't make sense. A peasant household has lived in the city for several years, and future generations are also used to urban life, renting a house, or selling rural land and buying a house in the city at a reasonable price. Can you not give him a hukou? Some people worry that this single approach will lead to household registration speculation, which I think will reduce speculation. If a city government can't even make housing planning, what else can it do? If we really can't do it, how can we really control the population? What is the significance of the household registration threshold?

According to popular opinion, the cost of absorbing a population in a big city will increase by tens of thousands of yuan, so it is necessary to restrict the migration of hukou in big cities. I thought this was a very ambiguous statement. The reality is that about 20% of China's farmers who work in cities already have stable accommodation in large and medium-sized cities. The new jobs and incomes of these agricultural migrants are stable, and they are urban taxpayers. Most of them are young and middle-aged, and their pension and medical treatment will not impose any burden on local finance. Whether the government gives them a hukou or not, they also have to enjoy a lot of public services in the city, and the government cannot save this part of the money. Registering these migrant farmers and their families as urban residents will do more harm than good.

Abolish the difference in household registration: can the "gold content" of household registration be unified?

After the difference between urban and rural household registration is completely "eliminated", can the agricultural transferred population enjoy the same rights as the local urban residents? Will there be an internal "dual structure" among residents with the same household registration? This needs to be discussed seriously.

First of all, there is the issue of equality of the "minimum living standard". At present, the amount of guarantee for "five-guarantee households" in rural areas and the "minimum security" standards for farmers that have been implemented throughout the country are mostly lower than the level of urban "minimum security". After the unification of urban and rural household registration, if the "minimum security" system is established in full accordance with urban standards, it will increase the financial burden. A flexible way is to set the standard of "minimum living standard" in the administrative district at the county level, unify the standard of "minimum living standard" for all residents in the administrative region, and at the same time implement "the old method for the elderly and the new method for the new." When determining the subsidy to farmers, consideration can be given to deducting the non-monetary portion of farmers' household operating income. If the existing poverty alleviation funds and the funds of the "five insurance households" are arranged together, the increment of funds required for the "minimum security" reform will not exceed 20 billion yuan. What is more important is that most of the people who have been transferred to agriculture in the cities are not those receiving the "minimum living standard".

The second is the unity of old-age security. With the acceleration of economic development and the growth of fiscal revenue, the difficulty of solving this problem is unexpectedly reduced. Now the country has the ability to combine rural old-age insurance with urban old-age insurance. The agricultural migrant population will enter different levels of urban old-age insurance according to their own situation, and the government's subsidy to the "new agricultural insurance" will be adjusted in the future according to the situation of development.

Thirdly, it is the issue of medical security. Basic medical security should be unified between urban and rural areas. At present, the "new cooperative medical system" in rural areas is being implemented throughout the country, and the state has spent a lot of money to lay the foundation. It should be noted that some urban residents do not have medical security, and rural methods can be introduced into the cities to form a unified basic medical security for the whole country. On this basis, it is divided into several levels to reflect the differences. In this respect, we can learn from the experience of Taiwan.

Fourth, after the complete unification of urban and rural household registration, how does the state operate the policy of supporting agriculture and farmers? This problem has not been paid enough attention to yet, but it will show its importance in the future. Urban and rural household registration is completely unified, from a reasonable point of view, who is a farmer is not so easy to identify, at least missing a "legal" identification mark. However, if we want to help agricultural producers, especially through "direct subsidy", we should have a legal definition of "farmers".