Stumbling Toward A (Status Quo) Budget
by
P.G. Behr
Here we are in May, and it’s “Douglas vs. the Legislature” – again. The Governor has rejected the budget concocted by our lawmakers, demanding that they sharpen their pencils and cut costs, instead of raising taxes.
Our own Alison Clarkson pleads for the Democrats’ budget, saying that it protects “essential services” from our state government. The trouble with Alison’s thinking, and that of her henchmen, is that they claim everything the state government does is essential! As anyone with a modicum of business experience knows, there is always room for improvement. The whole idea of free enterprise is doing things better, faster, cheaper. If Alison used this model, our state government could perform truly “essential services” with a lot less taxpayer money.
But our state government doesn’t work that way, and the Democratic Legislature isn’t interested in improving efficiency. Thus we have the essential services ploy, which our lap-dog media duly accepts, without inquiring just what “essential services” are at risk. The Governor is not in a position to overhaul the state government. That’s the Legislature’s job. But the idea that everything the state government does is “essential” is ludicrous.
I predict that a budget will finally be put together which more or less maintains the status quo, pushing the problem of high cost government to the next session. But it would be good if the Legislature and the Governor agreed to a process for reviewing the state’s operations with an objective of improving efficiency and reducing its size and cost. It could start by disclosing financial data. Some states have transparency laws which allow citizens to know the cost of all government services, including salaries of all employees, and it would be useful for our state to have such a law.
But if Alison and her fellow legislators really want to do our citizens a favor, they should initiate a movement for a real examination of our state government, which would inevitably result in significant downsizing and more efficient operations. Most of the reduction could come from attrition, so there would be little actual job loss, but the beast could be gradually tamed.
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The State of California is getting a lot of publicity these days as it careens from one financial crisis to another. Vermont’s problems are small in comparison, but have some similarity, in that California kept adding more costly public programs during boom times, and when lean times arrived last year, its tax revenues plummeted. Same thing in Vermont!
At the same time it was spending more that it could prudently afford, California was so hostile to business that many companies left the state for more business-friendly places, like Nevada, Utah and Arizona. Vermont has a similar story. These things come home to haunt you.
One reason our Legislature is so ineffective in facing up to the real problems of our state is that many of our lawmakers have a personal agenda. Take Tony Klein, who heads up the House Energy Committee. His only objective is to shut down Vermont Yankee. He could care less about the cost of such a move to Vermont households and industry. When you have zealots running key committees, you get radical legislation, and this situation is endemic in our Legislature.
To get back to my first topic, Doug Racine, who is already running for governor (in 2010), claims that the Legislature has exhausted all possibilities to trim costs, and that the “most vulnerable” Vermonters will suffer greatly if the Governor has his way. Democrats love to portray “most vulnerable” people being thrown out on the streets in mid-winter because stingy, rich Republicans won’t pay their “fair share” – another favored expression. So my question to candidate Doug is: Why don’t you cut non-essential services? Then we would applaud you for adequately financing the services that only government can, and must, provide.
(P.G. 'Pete' Behr is a regular contributor to the Vermont Standard where this essay first appeared.)
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