Lincoln Blog
March 04, 2010:
The tax hike drum beat has started.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dwight Evans told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that taxes must go up or the state will become insolvent.
Of course, he conveniently brushes aside the other side of the equation: spending cuts.
Here is what Evans told the T-R: "At the end of the day, you've got to come up with more money. Erasing huge deficits -- $2.4 billion in fiscal year 2011-12 and $5.6 billion the next year -- require major cuts in things such as education or corrections, or a tax hike. It's not rocket science. It's not complicated."
No, it is neither rocket science, nor is it complicated. In fact it is very, very simple: Harrisburg spends too much of our money and it needs to spend less.
The Commonwealth Foundation is fond of pointing out that if state government has grown over the past seven years at just the rate of inflation we would not be facing massive deficits; in fact we would have a surplus.
Major cuts in spending should be made. We should spend less on corrections. The education budget has skyrocketed out of control, even during these difficult financial times. Further increases in the education budget are unwarranted and unnecessary. And then there is welfare.
Spending on welfare has been the fastest growing segment of the state budget. It needs to be cut, and cut substantially.
Despite a budget stalemate last year that lasted 101 days, the governor and the General Assembly did not get a grip on spending. The budget relied on one-time revenue sources, stimulus money and gimmicks doing nothing more than kicking the day of reckoning down the road a bit further.
Well, the day of reckoning is fast approaching. And it is doing so in an election year.
The fact is as Penn's Woods continues to struggle with the recession working families and small businesses simply cannot afford to pay more in taxes.
This year, if the legislature does not go on a spending diet, then voters ought to the big spenders out of office in November.
