‘Red meat’ calls for budget cuts are fine, as long as someone else wields the knife
Chances are good that you enjoyed a large slab of meat on the grill this weekend.
Chances are better that you had absolutely no interest in dwelling on the sacrifice of the pig or cow that donated the sizzle. We’re funny about our groceries that way.
Many of our politicians are just as delicate when it comes to fiscal affairs.
Until proven otherwise, Georgia remains a Republican bastion. The majority of men and women on our governmental ramparts have declared that the only way to deal with the state’s worst fiscal crisis since World War II is to cut, cut, and cut some more.
In hard times, they say, necessity combines with conservative philosophy to create a double virtue.
And yet many Republicans do not want to be seen holding a dripping ax. Better to let Gov. Sonny Perdue shoulder that tool alone when it comes to yet more carving at the meat and bones of education, law enforcement, even the courts — for we are far past trimming the fat.
Perdue, after all, will not be on the ballot in 2010.
The state of Georgia, like many others, entered a new fiscal year last week. Our condition, officially, is NABATOG: Not As Bad As The Other Guy.
We’re not a California basket case. Nor have we followed the example of Mississippi, which last week simply decided not to fund its utility-regulating Public Service Commission.
But in Georgia, the books on fiscal year 2009 won’t be closed for another week or so. Some are predicting that state tax revenues in June withered to the point that they produced an end-of-the-year hole, which will require the use of ever-shrinking reserves to patch. The Georgia Constitution allows no deficit.
More and immediate cuts to the new budget are expected. The question is, who makes them? Last week, the governor said he was willing to call a special session of the Legislature if there was a “consensus” that such a thing was needed.
But inside the Capitol, the governor’s language was viewed as mere ritual politeness. Perdue would prefer to make the necessary cuts on his own — and many Republican lawmakers would prefer to let him, just as they did last year.
“I’m not hearing any calls for a special session,” said state Rep. Rich Golick (R-Smyrna), a former Perdue floor leader and a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “It’s a matter of getting the work done in the most efficient way possible.”
Asked to weigh the pros and cons of an impromptu gathering of the General Assembly, Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Hill (R-Reidsville) was profoundly one-sided. “There’s always cons to a special session. It’s just a big problem for the Legislature,” he said.
There are good reasons for allowing Perdue to handle the cuts by himself, or in quiet consultation with a House speaker and lieutenant governor — rather than in the awkward and slow presence of 236 lawmakers. “Time is of the essence. The earlier we make decisions, the less painful they will be to implement,” Hill said.
But even some Republicans concede, out of earshot, that in such a situation, the Legislature gives up a heavy slice of its authority.
Officially, lawmakers will be able to challenge the governor’s amputations when they return to Atlanta for the annual session. But by then, the cuts will have been in place for six months. “If they wait until [January], it limits the flexibility of the Legislature to change what the governor is doing,” said Alan Essig, executive director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
A 2010 budget cut of 5 percent to 10 percent, Essig said, would amount to a rewriting of the document the Legislature passed this spring.
The most obvious reason Republicans are reluctant to summon a special session: It would give Democrats like House Minority Leader DuBose Porter of Dublin, now a candidate for governor, a megaphone.
Porter called for a special session last year, and was ignored. “Consequently, you had across-the-board cuts rather than priority budgeting,” he said. And that resulted, Porter said, in the oddity of a state home for veterans shuttered last August, while spending on the governor’s “Go Fish Georgia” project was continued.
Porter also argues that, by not calling a special session, the governor ties his own hands. The Democrat has argued not for a tax increase, but for more efficient collection of state sales tax revenue — something that would require an act of the Legislature.
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© 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
20 comments Add your comment
Keith
July 5th, 2009
5:03 pm
Can you folks please find someone other than Alan Essig as a source for state financial information. While his “budget institute” says it’s non-partisan (meaning not affiliated with a party, it is clearly liberal and their stated purpose is to reform the state tax code so as to increase spending on liberal social programs.
booger
July 5th, 2009
6:27 pm
This is an area where it would be wise to ask, “What would Obama do”.
Answer….Amend the state constitution to allow deficit spending, then spend like a mad man.
Sounds like a plan.
David S
July 5th, 2009
9:37 pm
The Republicans in this state, much as republicans nationwide (Ron Paul excepted) are all talk and no walk. What they all lack is any semblance of conservative principles. They fundamentally know nothing about economics, freedom, liberty, or principles of any kind. They are deathly afraid of any budget cutting because they fundamentally do not know exactly why government should not have any money or power. They love government power as much as the next socialist. They just like to talk like fiscal conservatives until they are elected. Then they spend like drunken sailors. They cannot take principled economic or political stands because of their long history of support for big government, socialism, and fascism. They would be afraid of correctly being called hipocrits. Of course when election time comes around, they are quick to dispel any criticism of themselves by reminding us that “it would be so much worse if a democrat got elected.” For the bulk of the republican party loyalists, this kind of crap works every time. Rather than actually standing up for principles themselves, the ridicule folks like Ron Paul, or libertarians who actually DO support fiscally conservative principles as folks who cannot win and then they go on to vote for socialists and fascists and then complain for the next 4 years that they had no other choice.
It has been said that the people get the government they deserve. The republican communist boot lickers in this state certainly do.
By the way, the democrats of this nation are lied to by their party just as much as the repubicans, and they too fall for the lie that it would be much worse under the other party and that any vote for an independent would be a wasted vote.
Just how many elections to you need to waste your vote on before you realize that the only wasted vote is for either a republican or a democrat?
MBW
July 5th, 2009
10:06 pm
Funny how reluctant Republicans are to make cuts when they control all of the branches of state govt…
MBW
July 5th, 2009
10:10 pm
To Republicans, budget cuts always sound great in the abstract…..but then when they actually have to make them, they get all squeamish because they know it’s not popular.
Misty
July 6th, 2009
12:08 am
Please explain to me the logic behind our learned legislators cutting a devastating $11 million (39%) out of the State Parks budget (which has been cut every year since 2002), causing many people to lose their jobs as well as a major decline in services to the public, but at the same time allocating $14 million to build Don Carter State Park on Lake Lanier. Who is going to staff or maintain it? It’s beyond comprehension.
jt
July 6th, 2009
6:50 am
JG claims-
And yet many Republicans do not want to be seen holding a dripping ax. Better to let Gov. Sonny Perdue shoulder that tool alone when it comes to yet more carving at the meat and bones of education, law enforcement, even the courts — for we are far past trimming the fat.
jt replies-
BS! There is plenty of fat left. Starve the beast.
Hera
July 6th, 2009
7:10 am
These Elected Spenders main purpose in life is to keep their jobs with all their perks and power. Then they have to keep the jobs of their friends and family. Kicking back “contracts” and favors to major donors is also a priority. When it comes to “What is best” for us poor old taxpaying voters they are clueless.
What is so hard about NOT SPENDING MONEY? These Elected Spenders don’t even understand the concept. SPOT SPENDING MONEY. It is not your money it is MY money and VOTERS MONEY. STOP SPENDING IT as if you won the lottery.
In Georgia only 17% of the private sector now has traditional pensions. Shouldn’t that tell the State of Georgia something? STOP offering pensions for public service employees as of January, 2010. Those currently in the system for more than five years are grandfathered in and the rest get a payout into a 401K. New hires start with a new 401K system just like the rest of us poor old taxpayers who live in the real world.
If the Elected Spenders can not figure out how to STOP SPENDING just take the State of Georgia Yellow Pages and cross out one out of every four agencies/departments that do not effect Police/Fire/Safety. Yes, I know that some people will suffer or be inconvenienced. Yes, I know jobs will be lost. But guess what? All this is MY MONEY. These jobs are not a RIGHT. These services are not a RIGHT.
STOP SPENDING MONEY.
I wish people who run for office would run on the plateform that they WOULD NOT BRING PORK back to their district. That they would NEVER vote for a tax increase. Most of all I wish somebody had the nerve to give me a list of Agencies/Departments they would cut if elected. But of course that would lose votes.
All that is left for us is to keep throwing these Elected Spenders out until you elect people that are fiscally responsible. Good luck to all of us waiting for that to happen.
herbK
July 6th, 2009
7:48 am
Hera, excellent post. Agreed.
Copyleft
July 6th, 2009
8:52 am
MBW has already made the point about a political truism:
Every voter agrees that government spending should be cut… for OTHER people.
retiredds
July 6th, 2009
9:23 am
When Sonny and the Republicans took over there were celebrations everywhere. A new day had arrived. The Republicans would solve all the problems Democrats had piled up over the prior 130 years. Political nirvana had at last arrived. Today all Georgians bask in the sun light of wise rule of Sonny and friends. All is happiness in red la la land.
Daedalus
July 6th, 2009
9:40 am
I’m all for eliminating unnecessary agencies — start with the State Department of Education — after all we cannot fall much farther than last in education.
jboy
July 6th, 2009
10:31 am
To All State Employee/Agency haters— better be careful about cutting out state Agencies, a lot of Business’s in Georgia depend on SUBSIDIES to operate, the AXE could fall on your job too…..then you better know a little about growin a garden for food. It’s not State Agencies fault for the National Crisis. It’s our elected immoral Officials who don’t feel any of the pain we feel. They have their own retirement & health care in which we (unelected officials) cannot participate in. There won’t ever be a change in Government until they are made to face the same issues the average taxpayer faces each day. So, if you want to change things, join a TEA Party and raise some hell!!
Base
July 6th, 2009
11:22 am
Sonny continues to gore everybody’s ox but his own.Why doesn’t he cut his own staff they are useless. Sonny buys useless jobs with our tax dollars and calls them tax cuts.
Hera
July 6th, 2009
12:29 pm
These Elected Spenders main purpose in life is to keep their jobs with all their perks and power. Then they have to keep the jobs of their friends and family. Kicking back “contracts” and favors to major donors is also a priority. When it comes to “What is best” for us poor old taxpaying voters they are clueless.
What is so hard about NOT SPENDING MONEY? These Elected Spenders don’t even understand the concept. STOP SPENDING MONEY. It is not your money it is MY money and VOTERS MONEY. STOP SPENDING IT as if you won the lottery.
In Georgia only 17% of the private sector now has traditional pensions. Shouldn’t that tell the State of Georgia something? STOP offering pensions for public service employees as of January, 2010. Those currently in the system for more than five years are grandfathered in and the rest get a payout into a 401K. New hires start with a new 401K system just like the rest of us poor old taxpayers who live in the real world.
If the Elected Spenders can not figure out how to STOP SPENDING just take the State of Georgia Yellow Pages and cross out one out of every four agencies/departments that do not effect Police/Fire/Safety. Yes, I know that some people will suffer or be inconvenienced. Yes, I know jobs will be lost. But guess what? All this is MY MONEY. These jobs are not a RIGHT. These services are not a RIGHT.
STOP SPENDING MONEY.
I wish people who run for office would run on the plateform that they WOULD NOT BRING PORK back to their district. That they would NEVER vote for a tax increase. Most of all I wish somebody had the nerve to give me a list of Agencies/Departments they would cut if elected. But of course that would lose votes.
All that is left for us is to keep throwing these Elected Spenders out until you elect people that are fiscally responsible. Good luck to all of us waiting for that to happen.
JBoys comments above are consistant with a person who thinks stopping the use of my tax dollars for any special interest “HATES” those getting the benefit. This is the mentality that does not allow any spending cuts. These people start screaming, “Look at what somebody else is getting”. Next they threaten us that we will suffer if we cut them off from my tax dollars.
No one wants to make the hard decisions. State employees have had it good and if you read my post my plan would grandfather all of their pensions. But even the mere thought that unknown State employees from the future might not get their perks sets JBoy into a tizzy.
Too bad it does the same thing to all our Elected Spenders.
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BPJ
July 6th, 2009
4:39 pm
Wow, the Fundamentalist Libertarians are really upset by any challenge to their worldview. They know (because their faith tells them so) that we can have lower taxes and all the government services we really care about. There is no sign in any of these posts of anyone having grappled with the actual state budget in any detail. One just says randomly strike one out of four (non public-safety) agencies. Yeah, that’s rational policy making! No one seems to be willing to do the hard work of specifying the precise cuts to be made, and then discussing the likely impacts on quality of life.
Jekyll Lover
July 6th, 2009
4:59 pm
Don’t forget the $50 million in general obligation bonds (which must be repaid by us taxpayers, with interest) used to support Mercer Reynold’s new resort project on Jekyll Island State Park, as well as all the tax breaks doled out for the project itself, so that this private developer can rake in huge profits from prime real estate on a public island and state park.
Budget Problems, AGAIN!!!! « Left on Lanier
July 6th, 2009
5:39 pm
[...] an eternity. [...]
ChrisS
July 6th, 2009
6:12 pm
Bluedogdemocrat has a good take on the budget crisis over at http://leftonlanier.com
Oh yeah
July 6th, 2009
10:01 pm
Nice Job Hera. Take it out on the government employees because your beloved private sector spewed chow and left you with a bad attitude. If there had been more government regulation of the mortgage institutions or less reckless loans by the blameless banks you might not be in that house that’s too big with a payment you can’t afford!