Another $1.3 Billion In Cuts for Governor Rendell
At the cabinet meeting yesterday (which the Commonwealth Foundation was escorted out of by security, being told it was a "closed meeting", while media and staff for the PA House Democrats were allowed to attend), Gov. Rendell announced another $500 million in "cuts" from his proposed budget. Of course these cuts were offset by a nearly equivalent amount in spending increases.
But Rendell has missed, by our count, $1.3 billion in easy cuts from the General Fund budget. These are programs aren't merely inefficient, but thing that government should not be involved in at all.
Here is our list of line items Rendell should eliminate. For more ideas on reducing spending, see our report, Government on a Diet.
5 comments:
NB The other way to reduce spending - rarely addressed in Harrisburg - is through competition in government procurement and contracts. The late lamented Bulletin documented the atrocities of inside dealing and no bid contracts at DARPA and the Turnpike Commission. The Auditor General's audits of PHEAA, the Allegheny Port Authority, the LCB and other government entities have also exposed a culture where the benefits of open, fair bidding by private business does not occur. Not only could the taxpayer save money, but many small businesses could get work that they need. Instead, the insiders get dealt hundreds of millions in overpriced contracts.
I sincerely appreciate your perspectives on the budget, but for only one time, I'd like you to quantify the inevitable human suffering that will result from balancing the budget by only making cuts.
Nate
Please document the human suffering of The Forgotten Taxpayers and their families when their money and their resources are taken from them by impersonal government fiat depriving them of the choice and the resources to decide what is best for themselves and their families.
Perhaps, you can help them understand.
The deprivation of individual autonomy, the ability of each of us to use our resources for our needs and wants, is unquantifiable and ineffable suffering and a "cost".
Heartless and unsympathetic collectivists, willing to use government police power to impose their unwanted choices with their attendant punishing costs on others, are unwilling, and unable, to address this suffering, this loss of individual freedom.
How do you consider Cover ALl Kids from the Dept of Insurance "wasteful spending"?
I think everyone can agree there are certain items that can be cut but health & human services don't seem particularly wasteful.
"Cover All Kids" is the expansion of CHIP to offer government health care to middle-class families, crowding out private insurance.
Here is our analysis of why this program is counterproductive.
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