As we are finding out lately, sometimes when you cut government spending, it hurts.
Usually there is a sentiment that government spending is out of control, and they need to cut, cut and cut some more. But then you have a small town with a wood bridge that needs fixing before a fall festival, and here’s a busy four-lane with a new convenience store opening at an intersection with no traffic signal, and you want to take the family to a park but it’s closed.
What people really mean when they call for government cuts is to stop spending on stuff they don’t want. It’s doubtful many people favor cutting the number of DNR rangers when they demand the state bring spending under control.
But how would we react to the state transportation department shelling out funds to fix some old wooden bridge at the other end of the state? Might some South Georgians consider our wooden bridge “pork”?
Politicians use the wrong rhetoric when managing budgets. The idea that “government should be run like a business” is wrong. Government should be run like a person – a responsible person, not the type who maxes out the credit cards every month.
Businesses operate with an eye to the bottom line while satisfying stockholders with yearly dividends. And, as many people are seeing, businesses lay off employees, cut bonuses and ask people to take early retirement.
Families and people can’t do that. You can’t (or shouldn’t) ask your 12-year-old to take a pink slip and move out just because school supplies are getting expensive.
Families and government have greater responsibilities than just watching the bottom line. Both must supply basic needs for people regardless of what the economy is doing.
And while its commendable Jasper’s mayor and council have kept city taxes low, what’s not so cool is the way they’ve come up short providing the city’s portion of $80,000 needed to fix a wooden bridge that many constituents wanted repaired before the Marble Festival.
At the state level, what to cut is much more confusing with the bewildering array of funding sources, expenditures, fixed costs, mandated programs plus the sheer size of everything. The deficit projected for this year (from a shortfall in state revenue collected) amounts to $1.6 billion.
Somewhere in there, everyone knows, is pork that should be cut, but what’s being put on the chopping block doesn’t sound too frivolous.
Among the unsavory cuts we may have to face are closing some state parks (on some days) and cutting funds for transportation needs. Even so, the state should be responsible to see that roads intersecting their Highway 515/575 have proper traffic signals.
But rather than generally keeping taxes low in Georgia or addressing needs, the state offered exemptions and special breaks left and right when times were good.
It was essentially a case of giving tax breaks to selected groups when plenty of revenue was rolling in–– a bad policy in terms of fairness and now clearly a bad choice in terms of financial responsibility.
For the short term, optimistic state legislators see this downturn as an impetus to really look at cost-cutting and to evaluate what’s truly needed versus the pork.
When you don’t have the money, it’s easier to justify cutbacks. In hindsight, Governor Perdue’s idea of building fancy fishing ramps at Georgia lakes doesn’t sound like much of an idea with the jobs of many wildlife agents now on the chopping block.
State government should emerge from this as a leaner operation and one that also looks ahead and tries to maintain some balance.
Instead of ramping up spending, like a teenager with a first job, the state should steer a straight financial rudder, putting something away for a rainy day even when the economic bar graph heads back up. |
|
