The Folly of Spending

 

 

 

"Go ahead. Put more lipstick on. It won't help this budget look better. It is still a pig..."

I am sorry I have to bring this up again. However, I am going to brag. The county I live in, Anoka County, is a very well run and well managed county. Our taxes are low, and my property taxes keep inching downward every year. Our Anoka County Board does a wonderful job in squeezing every molecule of value out of every tax dollar. To me, they exemplify how government should be run.

Now that I have the "warm fuzzy" out of the way, I will get into the "cold prickly". What the Sam Hill is wrong with the Republicans this year? In November we had an historic election to break the status quo. Not only nationally, but also locally. We now have the Republicans in charge of the Minnesota House. We have a Speaker of the House from my own BPOU. "Big Mo" is on our side. And what are we doing with it? Raising the level of intrusive state government by another 2%.

I think the reason so many Minnesota Conservatives are fed up is we have seen this movie before. Like the last time we had a Republican Speaker of the House. And we got the same line as today. "Well, our increase is much lower than the Governor's proposed increase." To that I say "Big flipping deal!" Our increase should not be an increase at all! It should be a decrease! We cannot, I repeat cannot, cut the size of this pig until we put it on a diet. If the 2% increase becomes reality, that will become the new baseline. That is how this massive state budget got so big in the first place!

In the land of sophism and deceit, truth tellers are in short supply. Yesterday on the radio a person was addressing the real deficit in Minnesota. Deficit? Impossible! We cannot run a deficit! Yes we can. We have the same "hidden" deficit the entire country has. Underfunded mandates. Social Security. Medicare. Medicaid. And state and municipal pensions. And this number is freaking huge. Scary huge. Many states have this issue. Illinois is just starting to realize how big of a problem it is for them. How big? Maybe Detroit big. Maybe bankruptcy big.

The old saying is still true. We cannot spend our way out of trouble. We need hardcore principles followed by hardcore discipline. We need zero based budgeting. We need to put each and every program under the microscope to wring out the waste, fraud and abuse. We need to get rid of redundant programs, archaic programs, useless programs. We need to cap or reduce salaries all over the state, starting at the University. Their salaries are simply outrageous. In short, this state needs to go on a diet which would make Wisconsin jealous.

The CD6 Convention is this weekend. It could be a raucous affair. The natives are restless. No, not restless - pissed. If this is how victory looks, we might as well stay losers.