Marshall Helmberger’s Sunday editorial in the Timberjay papers (Ely, Cook, Orr and Tower) should make some waves in the state budget debate. He lays out a compelling argument against the stopgap methods the governor hopes to use to plug the state budget deficit.
My only addition is that budget disasters like the one we have now can only be solved long term if all sides agree that a combination of fair taxes and reasonable cuts will balance a budget. You can do cuts alone, but only if large, specific functions of government are ended. That’s almost never done. The practical argument is then about what’s the fair and reasonable way to provide the level of government that voters seem to want. That’s where the debate should be.
Supposedly we’ve been getting tax cuts and more tax cuts under the Republicans. And supposedly we all felt better off when we were paying more in taxes. But we were bitching about the taxes, so the Republicans ran on that platform. Now we’re seeing the results. Some people are never satisfied.