Balancing is Hard to Do
Decatur Metro | June 14, 2010 | 10:11 amIt’s hard for any ruling party to institute necessary cut backs when there’s money available. And the Georgia legislature is no exception.
A Sunday in-depth report in the AJC documented how the ruling party at the Georgia (Gold) Dome have increasingly relied on Federal funding to balance their budgets.
The portion of state budget coming from federal taxpayers has increased from about $7 billion in fiscal 2003, during the last recession, to nearly $13 billion in the fiscal year than begins July 1, according to state records. Gov. Sonny Perdue signed the upcoming year’s budget last week.
“Oh the hypocrisy!”, we scream. If only pointing out philosophical hypocrisies ever compelled anyone to change anything.
Human beings are nothing if not inconsistent in their dominant motivators. And when “human nature” kicks in, big picture problems, like say a budget deficit, always seem to take a back seat when your livelihood is on the line. That goes not just for politicians, but also tax payers and government employees.
So the vicious cycle continues. In times of financial hardship, tax payers and government employees are OK with making cutbacks as long as it’s not THEIR program or job that’s affected. And when an alternative exists (borrow more money), ruling-party politicians of any stripe avoid tax increases and program cuts like the plague to ensure their own jobs aren’t “affected” by losing to a future incumbent.
And, up, up, up climbs the Federal deficit.
h/t: Fresh Loaf
Yes, and the problem is even more indious in this case, because the people spending the money (Georgia) aren’t doing the borrowing. For states, this is essentially free money. So our state reps are not being faced with the tough decisions to tax or to cut services — the feds are, once again, pretending that such decisions can be forever deferred. I agree with you that ideology and political philosophy go out the window when free money enters the picture. By disbursing all this money, the feds are stopping tax and spending debates that the states very much need to have.
Worse still, the feds are directly subsidizing the profligacy of many state governments. Oh, it’s not so bad here, but look at NY, California, Illinois. All three are essentially bankrupt, having spent themselves into oblivion. NY is about to issue IOUs in lieu of tax refunds — it doesn’t have the cash to return overpayments! CA did the same recently. Illinois’ debt was recently downgraded. On and on it goes. And the money will continue flowing until China stops buying Treasuries, or at least demands a larger interest rate to assume the risk. When that happens — and it will — our failure to do anything serious about unsutainable government spending will make the subprime crisis look like child’s play.
Hey DM,
Hypocrisy is “the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that are inconsistent with one’s actions.”
Your newly coined term “Hypocracy” might, however, be the perfect term for the form of government under which the state of Georgia is being run.
What about “hypocrazy”?
I’m reserving the domain even as we speak.
Also, the claim of hypocrisy depends upon the assumption that state-level deficit hawks live up to their principles only by refusing this federal money, because refusing it would help the federal debt problem. Except that it wouldn’t. When several GOP governors initially said they’d refuse stimulus funds, several other governors of both parties immediately said “well then send that money to me.”
Here’s Arnold:
“Well, Governor Sanford says that he does not want to take the money, the federal stimulus package money. And I want to say to him: I’ll take it. I’m more than happy to take his money or any other governor in this country that doesn’t want to take this money, I take it, because we in California can need it,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Jennifer Granholm from Michigan:
“So you better believe I’m going to take every dollar that is coming to Michigan. And if my colleagues here in Minnesota and South Carolina don’t get — don’t use theirs, I’m going to be first in line to say for my people, for our citizens, to put people to work and to make sure that they can survive through this, I’ll take their dollars, too.”
So there you have it. Even if we refuse the money, it will be distributed and spent. The AJC reporter couldn’t be bothered to mention any of this, I guess. I’ve seen zero evidence that refusing to take this federal money would reduce the federal deficit by one thin dime. Where, then, is the inconsistency?
Good point, DEM. Seems like our democratic system is set-up for a lot of things, but states providing financial checks-and-balances over the Fed doesn’t seem to be one of them.
But this isn’t just about stimulus funding. Georgia’s pattern goes back to 2003, according to the article. Is the argument of “if we refuse the money…” the same if we’re talking more about general budget practices of filling budget holes with Federal funds?
Good point, not really sure. Pre-stimulus, it probably wan’t a huge issue, since the dollars were comparatively smaller. Meaning the states took the money without much thought, since it wasn’t as big of a deal, and the states’ own tax revenues weren’t falling off a cliff.