What a difference a year makes... Last year's billion dollar deficit blossomed. Now, we are looking at having to go back and shave another $1.6 Billion dollars off last year's budget just to keep the doors open through the end of the fiscal year in June.
Some might recall that a year ago I was hopeful that we would look at our then-ugly-but-now-strangely-beautiful-by-comparison "little" billion dollar problem and respond with downsizing and efficiency steps that would make us healthier. I was thinking "pruning" was in order (and it was). I never, even in my darkest Guiness-inspired moments of jaded despondency, imagined that former (excuse me while I stop and reflect on how good it feels to write that... aaahhh... thank you) Governor Napolitano would pull the stunt she did in the closing days of our last session. Sure, I thought that a big spender like this "lady" would surely ignore the gravity of our billion dollar deficit and coerce us into accepting less efficiency reforms and more borrowing and accounting gimmicks in order to avoid a veto from her well-worn veto stamp. But, did I think she would gather her minions and push through a secret budget in the middle of the night that would take us to the brink of bankruptcy only a few months later? No. I didn't. I thought that even if she had lost interest in Arizona, had barely graced a single budget negotiation meeting, and generally didn't seem to really give a rip, that perhaps her Democrat legislators would recognize that they still have to live here when she is gone. I thought they would refuse her idiotic suggestion that they not only ignore the deficit, but find a way to spend another billion or so that we simply didn't have through debt, debt, and more debt. But, like abused children trying to please an overbearing mother, they fell in line and said, "Yes, yes, yes... let's spend what we don't have on some new stuff we don't need and then take a loan to cover it all! Thank you, ma'am, may I have another?!"
Now the billion dollar deficit has become a $1.6 billion deficit (soon to be $1.8 billion, they tell us). And, we can look forward to another $3 billion shortfall in our next budget, which will go into effect in only 6 months. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I will point out that we have a very very big, monstrous, seemingly insurmountable problem here. We are required, as you recall, to create a balanced budget. And, since we very much would like the economy to recover sooner rather than later, we have to recognize that no economist worth his salt would suggest that increasing taxes is going to provide a healthier economy, and so that is not really a viable option. Soooooo. That leaves us with cutting the size of government back to levels around the turn of the century (THIS century, silly, not the last one).
So, we are looking at across-the-board cuts and attempting to hold harmless, to the greatest degree, those essential government functions like public safety, education, and the like. Yet the cash-cow institutions of state government* are out running around with their heads on fire spreading discontent and misinformation, prompting numerous emails and phone calls and faxes to our offices. The leaders of these bureaucratic strongholds are trying to use a campaign of misinformation-driven grass roots to to force deeper cuts into healthcare, transportation, and public safety so that they don't have to face the realities of this national economic crisis like the rest of the nation, the state, and even their own students.
*If I may, I would like to point out the audacity of a man who terrifies trusting, but generally uninformed, students and their parents with untrue statements so they will scream, cry, and gnash their teeth at the legislature... I have to believe that if we pay this University President roughly 3/4 of a MILLION dollars a year (not including the $160,000 his wife also makes as a "consultant" to the University), he is bright enough to know the difference between a 6% cut and a 40% cut. So, I have to see his prolific emails to alumni and the like to be disingenuous and not just ignorant.
Call me melodramatic, but we have very limited choices here. We can either limp along in a dimly lit energy-saver mode until the economy bounces back or we can simply burn-baby-burn and party like it's 1999 until the lights abruptly go out... I'm thinking I would rather tell the stories to my grandchildren of the "slim" days than admit I was bullied into driving the state into a complete shut down.
