Editorial - Don’t be bluffed by budget fear - Go ahead., make the taxpayers’ day.
Beloit Daily News, 5 5 2008
ACCORDING TO THE Doyle administration, unless Wisconsin decision-makers come up with a plan to fill the $527 million budget hole soon, there will be no choice but to cut state payments for schools, municipalities, construction projects and more.
OK. So what?
Not that we’re supportive of the dilly-dallying taking place in Madison, mind you. Those full-time elected legislators - you know, the ones who only spent about four weeks in session last year - have few responsibilities more pressing than establishing the state’s budget. The failure, again, to manage the state’s finances in a timely and responsible way just adds to the mounting evidence that the people have been poorly served.
THE POINT is that if it becomes necessary to cut … then cut!
That’s what responsible budget managers do, from coast-to-coast, in the private sector, which does not have the luxury of coercively adding revenue (read: raising taxes) or resorting to the kind of accounting legerdemain that is a staple of government.
One need look no further than last week’s announcement that General Motors is shelving the second shift in Janesville, putting some 750 workers out on the street. That is a painful process that will reverberate across the Stateline Area. Does anyone think General Motors’ managers wanted to make that truly tough choice?
By comparison, state government’s challenge is modest.
WE’VE SAID IT before, we’ll say it again. So long as every government employee - state workers, school teachers, city staffers and so on - can expect job security, annual raises and the kind of benefit packages that are rare as snowballs in Miami, stop trying to tell taxpayers how hard decisions are being made.
They’re not. And government does nothing for its sinking credibility by claiming otherwise. The answer is smaller government, coupled with an attitude adjustment by the people.
The Founders did not intend for government to meet every need or touch every corner of citizens’ lives. In fact, the Founders surely would be mortified by today’s bloated bureaucracies and endless demands on the people’s purse.
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Governors, Legislators, Mayors, School Board members and other elected officials now care more about themselves, their perks, their re-election, and their pensions than they care about taxpayers.
lennie 05.08.08 @ 11:28 pm