With the state facing a $5.2 billion dollar budget shortfall, what gets lost in the debate are the real people and the real problems they face. We tend to talk about closing the budget gap or reforming government or zero-based budgeting or across-the-board cuts. All of that is well and good. A crisis makes us focus our efforts like nothing else.
But behind the staggering numbers are thousands of our neighbors, friends, classmates and fellow Minnesotans who depend to one extent or another on the state government for their health care, for their day care, for their k-12 education, for tuition help at college, for their transportation needs and more. And with the recession mounting and layoffs being announced every day, their needs are greater, not less.
Governor Pawlenty has, as usual, put a tax increase off-limits. At least he said he's willing to accept federal funds through President Obama's proposed multi-billion stimulus package for infrastructure. The Democratic leaders in the Legislature aren't talking about an increase now either, but aren't taking it off the table. I'm not advocating an increase, but let's be honest: it may be inevitable and necessary.
Draconian cuts alone may not solve our budget problem and they will certainly do harm to all those people dependent on the services the state budget provides. And, in the larger picture, such cuts will make us less of the state that we want to be. Our health care rankings have fallen, our education rankings have fallen. What's next?
As my old friend and colleague, Dane Smith, of Growth and Justice, wrote recently in the Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/35507039.html?elr=KArksUUUU:
"Tax cuts and small government were sold to Minnesota as a jobs-producing proposition. Instead, on indicators from income growth to unemployment, we have become more like other states in their lackluster economic performance. Minnesota has survived budget crises and will do so again. The real peril comes if we lose the memory of what made this a great state and the vision required of a smart investor."
Smith points out that those in the top 5 percent of incomes---making over $150,000---pay about 10.5 percent of their income in state and local taxes. Everybody else pays about 12 percent.
The same thing happened at the federal level. Economist Robert Frank, writing in The New York Times, said, "The Bush tax cuts widened income inequality and drove deficits to record levels. Referring to those cuts, Mr. Obama said that 'people didn't need them, and they weren't even asking for them.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/business/07view.html?ref=business
Obama was criticized during the campaign for saying about his proposed tax cuts for the middle class and rescinding of the tax cuts for the top income earners that he wanted "to spread the wealth around." Let's turn that around here: As we face this unprecedented economic and budget crisis in Minnesota, how about spreading the sacrifice around. If we ask the thousands of recipients of health care, education, transportation and the like to live with huge service cuts, is it so awful to ask the most fortunate among us to share the burden oh so slightly? I think not.