Blog
Cutting Spending Isn’t Easy
February 14, 2011
On Friday, Governor Scott Walker announced his Budget Repair Bill aimed at covering Wisconsin’s deficit of $137 Million for the current fiscal year ending June 30, 2011 and addressing the $3.7 Billion deficit for the two year budget. Unions and other liberal organizations sounded shocked at the possibility of spending cuts.
The fact remains that cutting government spending isn’t easy. Almost regardless of what elected officials would try to cut from their government’s budget, there would be strong opposition from those currently benefiting from that government spending. When I worked on Capitol Hill, a budget was introduced that proposed cutting funding for public television and public radio. As soon as the hosts on public television and public radio announced the proposed budget cut, our Congressional office received a deluge of calls, e-mails, and letters against the proposed cut in spending. Ultimately, Congress voted against the spending cut because of the political pressure from constituents to continue to fund public television and radio.
Once a person benefits from government spending, they rely upon it and will be extremely motivated to contact their elected officials if there is even a rumor of cutting that spending. Almost without fail, there will be stronger political pressure to not cut spending than the political pressure to reduce the spending. Moreover, government agencies always think their budgets should grow, regardless of the effectiveness or necessity of their programs. It takes a tremendous amount of courageous and commitment to see a proposed spending cut through to be enacted into law.
Looking around the country, even Democratic Governors in other states are proposing budgets with significant spending cuts. In New York State, for example, Governor Cuomo, a Democrat, announced a budget with cuts to many government programs. While some states, such as Illinois, have raised taxes to address their dire fiscal situations, most states see that their bloated budgets must be cut. The private sector has had to make cuts to employees’ benefits, salaries, etc. The public sector finally has to face the music.
The Tea Party Movement helped to elect a new wave of conservative leaders throughout our country. Many taxpayers across the state and nation voted for conservatives due to the liberals wasteful spending and bloated budgets that have created these deficits.
What will the Tea Party do now? Will the Tea Party use their political power to contact their elected officials to support spending cuts? Or will the Tea Party let liberal groups drown out their calls for less spending and limited government? On Tuesday (Election Day- Don’t forget to vote!), the Joint Finance Committee will hold a hearing regarding the Budget Repair Bill at 10am in Room 412 East of the WI State Capitol. The left will certainly be organized and will show up with strong numbers in opposition to the spending cuts. Will conservatives speak up?
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Ah Matt, I believe you are misrepresenting the concerns of unions in Milwaukee. They are not concerned about a pay cut-that does not attract people from hundreds of miles. What they are concerned about is the removal of their COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS.
Numzio: As our budget-busting President loves to SAY (but rarely fulfills), “Let me be clear…” As a Pennsylvania taxpayer, I don’t care WHAT facet of the union machine has contributed to the current suffocation of government budgets, it must be exposed for what it is: an unsustainable financial burden on government services and responsibilities that must and will be exposed and forced, if necessary, to shoulder it’s fair share of sacrifice.
The union leadership has hijacked what used to be a fair balance between employer and employee into justifying their existence and subsequent union-dues confiscation by overreaching benefit escalation that is used to fund liberal policies that clearly cannot be supported on a long-term basis.
WAKE UP, RANK-AND-FILE UNION MEMBERS! You have been and are being sold down the river with unrealistic promises in the name of keeping YOUR hard-earned money flowing into union coffers. This is the excuse the various labor unions have used to convince you that you must support them and their oftentimes radical ideological goals.
Make no mistake… BOTH Dems and Republicans have contributed to this nonsense by allowing invalid economic policies to move forward for the express purpose of GETTING REELECTED. (Can you say, “TERM LIMITS”????) Nearly all of us have benefited one way or the other from this largess, but the jig is up and the party is over. All of us must accept this fact and be willing to tighten our financial belts to ensure our republic and accompanying liberty will continue in the wonderful manner that our Founding Fathers created for us. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. THE PARTY IS OVER, and for the past forty or fifty years our parents and we have spent not only our wealth, but that of our kids and grandkids for the foreseeable future. This is unconscionable, and cries out for fiscal responsibility moving forward.
And for those of that believe that some sort of revolution is going to correct this basic financial quagmire, you are sorely mistaken. Chaos usually devolves into lawlessness and will rob all of us of much more than collective bargaining “rights”.
Much is on the line here, folks, and I beg that all of us will use common sense and leave the shouting, pitchforks, torches and bullets to the Middle East where the population has NEVER known and probably NEVER WILL know true freedom.