In Which We Find the Local GOP Bamboozling Again About Budget Discipline
Today’s installment of GOP bamboozlement comes via the News Journal, where they are now trying to convince people that they want to constrain government spending. You should read the whole thing, but I’m not so sure who this convinces:
The proposal, co-sponsored by Rep. Deborah Hudson, R-Fairthorne, would require a three-fifths majority vote to approve the state’s budget if it expands faster than the rate of inflation.
Huh?
I’m not thinking that this addresses anything germaine about our current budget situation. And why would they want to do this now — it isn’t as though they were concerned about the growth in spending when they ran both chambers.
So in response to more budget shortfalls, all these guys can come up with are procedural moves that do absolutely nothing to constrain said spending. One of these days someone will ask them to put their budget proposals on the table and get them to stop showboating on this thing. What is fun about trying to index the government to the rate of inflation is that much of what the government does almost always rises faster than the rate of inflation and how do you fit genuine emergencies into “inflation”? How do you pay for the snow removal if the Feds don’t kick in? How do you pay for beach replenishment if the Feds don’t? The state runs landfills, whose operating costs almost always go up faster than inflation. I could go on, but you get the idea.
What I know for a fact is that government is not free. I also know that there are probably ways to get additional efficiencies from this government (hey — what about a unicameral legislature? How much would that save?), but at some point if you want to be taken seriously about constraining spending, you need to start putting real solutions on the table. Man up and tell Delawareans what — exactly — services now enjoyed by Delaware taxpayers that you would eliminate in an effort to ratchet down on spending. It is well past time to stop letting these bamboozlers pretend that government is free, to stop letting them get away with avoiding the political risks of actually enumerating what they would cut. And until they do — it just isn’t possible to consider them serious about dealing with either spending or budget challenges.
Tags: Republican Bamboozlement
As an old bamboozler myself I can predict politicians will delay the truth until the last moment.I will say that Beach Replenishment never should have been paid for with Federal money, the money should come from the towns, county and residents who benefit from replenishment.
I’m with you on beach replenishment.
Putting any kind of supermajority or additional burden on tax or budget issues should scare anyone. Just look at California.
About the beach replenishment: I feel the tourist towns deserve fed help but not the private beaches along the coast.You can make a case for the towns by comparing the help they get to the help towns get in tornado alley when one of those completely devastates a town.Still,all in all,you can’t fight MOTHER NATURE.At some point ,our efforts will become futile.Better minds than mine will have to determine when.
Indeed — which not only has a dysfunctional budget process, but budgets that are still quite out of control. So changing the process doesn’t get you much besides more budget mayhem.
I’m really tired — I mean really tired — of listening to repubs have on about too much spending without a single real suggestion for actually restraining it. Restraint meaning naming your budget cuts or service cuts — not just some silly handwaving on process.
Since when do the private communities get beach money in the first place? Uhm, they don’t.
And everyone in the state benefits from the beaches. Lose the beaches, lose the tourist money, lose the tax revenue.
Sorry,didn’t mean to imply public money for private replenishment.
Remember “Sandcastle Gate”!
The real bamboozle is that Vince Lofink, the guy who got a free masters degree at taxpayer’s expense and who Auditor Tom Wagner said broke the law is back in politics. In a round about way.
His wife Janet is running for County Council. I wonder how the GOP makes the case for Janet who has not had a private sector job in twenty years and has been living off political insider deals like her husband can be seen as honest. Talk about ethics being gone in politics.
This has government dependent Roger Roy all over it. Roy who was in the legislature for 30 years and drew a huge consulting fee from the state on transportation matters and whose wife is ED of Delaware Health Care Commission. Roy was pulling down almost $200k a year.
Possibly, each elected GOP office holder in the area will renounce Janet’s run as too risky for the seat to be lost like Clatworthy did in 2008?
http://www.delawareonline.com/assets/pdf/BL152705227.PDF tells the story of the Lofink thievery.
The GOP is full of thieves and crooks, don’t believe a word they say.