It’s budget season, and while that usually induces more yawns than anything else, this year we’ve seen some significant reactions across the country. The federal budget has been a hot topic for months, but the state budgets have come under the microscope in recent days.
In Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio (just to name a few) proposed budget cuts have been met with heavy opposition. Not every state is the same, in Wisconsin lawmakers are playing Hide-and-Seek, in Ohio public unions are converging on Columbus and in Michigan a lot of people just seemed really surprised.
While watching all of these various reactions unfold, I found myself thinking the same thing over and over again, “What were all of these people expecting?”
The entire 2010 campaign was about deficits and debt. The Republican Party called for across the board cuts at all levels of government to get the various houses in order, and they were elected by comfortable margins.
Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio all elected Republican governors and increased the number of their political brethren in each state house. In other words, this is exactly what was supposed to happen.
The Republicans ran on budget cuts and now they’re moving to implement them less than four months after the election. This recent outrage is a little confusing. No one was misled. All of the proposed cuts were part of the campaign platforms of the various Republican candidates.
If deficits and debt are a problem in this country, and most people would tell you they are (70% according to a Pew survey), then we have two options. Cut spending or raise taxes. In November, the majority of the American people, including the majority of people in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, voted for spending cuts.
Yet now that it’s time to start cutting, the public is getting cold feet. Apparently, they thought we’d only need to cut programs they didn’t like. Michigan has a $1.8 billion shortfall, but for some reason we can’t close it by only eliminating free pens at the Secretary of State offices. It seems we’re actually going to have to make cuts that affect people’s lives.
I guess that’s too much to ask.
It’s an interesting development, actually. My cynical older brother would have warned me about this; people only want to make cuts to programs that don’t affect their own lives. Most budget cutting measures are lucky to register a 50-percent approval and some don’t even make it to 25 percent, according to the same Pew survey.
My response to this harsh realization, “Enjoy the deficits.”
If you aren’t willing to cut spending in a serious way, then stop complaining about the deficits and stop complaining all together. You’re also welcome to pay more in taxes than the government asks for, trust me, they won’t turn it down.
People aren’t willing to sacrifice. Apparently, I was duped into thinking they were when they came out in large numbers in November to vote for these exact spending cuts. That was silly of me.
But here we are, on the verge of serious spending cuts, and so many people are being so critical of the political leaders who are trying to keep our states from going under.
If you called for higher taxes in the first place, then you’re allowed to stay the course. If you wanted spending cuts, it’s time to get out of the way. You had your chance to oppose them, but budget cutters won the elections, so let them go to work.
I’m reminded of President Barack Obama’s comment that elections have consequences. They certainly do. This election brought group of serious budget cutters to power and the consequences are spending cuts.
Education funding is going to drop, tough choices are going to have to be made and things we want to keep are going to disappear. Rock bottom isn’t a nice play to start, but that’s where we find ourselves.
The Republicans told us their plan to get us back on our feet would look like this. We voted them into power, now it’s time to let them go to work.
Nothing they do in the next two or four years will be so devastating that it can’t be undone. If it doesn’t work, we’ll throw them out and start over. In the meantime, you voted for sacrifice. It’s time to start sacrificing and it’s time to stop complaining about it.
