The Right Thing To Cut

In a time when budgets are tight, cuts must be made. You hear that a lot, but I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter whether the budget is tight or not. Some things just shouldn't be purchased, no matter how flush you are with cash, because they aren't proper for you to buy.

I don't buy Russian language books. Even though I have a friend who is from Russia and could read them, I leave it to her to buy the Russian language books for herself.

So, I am thrilled that Indianapolis' mayor is putting the city's arts budget on the chopping block. From the Indy Star:

Mayor Greg Ballard's plan to cut public funding for the arts by a third, to $1 million, next year dominated the discussion by about 25 speakers in front of a crowd of roughly 100. The council is scheduled to vote on the budget Sept. 22 and is not expected to make major changes.

It's a shame the cut is only going to be around 33%, and not 100%. Socialized art is not a proper function of government. Public safety is. Courts are. Infrastructure is. These things should be fully funded before anything else is even considered. It seems this Mayor gets it, at least by a third, that public safety affects everyone, and that the arts are a private concern, because not only do they not affect everyone, but art is so specific to taste, that it really only benefits a few.

Is that what we want? Public policy that benefits the select few?

What was interesting about a previous outcry about the proposed cuts was to see the line of representatives of local museums at the podium. That told me a lot about the nature of the funding. Mainly, it isn't going to starving artists. It's going to well-funded institutions as a corporate welfare.

Is that what we want? Public policy that benefits corporations?

No, cutting the arts is the right thing to do. Our federal government could take note here.

Update: Indiana Barrister has the list of recipients of arts funding largesse.

Oh, Smaller Government?

(Broadview Hts, OH)- As I listened to the Palin speech, and the Giuliani speech last night, the biggest thing that caught my attention were statements that this Republican ticket would result in smaller government, lower spending, and lower taxes.

Now, why should that be believed?

Sure, the Democratic ticket is going to increase spending, increase the size of government, and raise taxes. But, is that any reason to believe that Republicans won't do the same? It is what was done under the Bush Administration. While in the Senate, John McCain was writing legislation like McCain-Feingold, not legislation that would eliminate a bureaucracy or department, not legislation that would cap spending, not legislation that would significantly cut taxes.

It galls me endlessly that Republicans campaign like fiscal libertarians, and then govern like pale Democrats- except in the last eight years, where Republicans made Democrats look like a collection of Friedmans and von Miseses. Last night's speeches did nothing to reverse this. 

So, Sarah Palin's a bulldog. That's nice. Dennis Kucinich is a bulldog, and gives one hell of a speech. So what? It's about policy, and I just couldn't find it convincing.

Budgets and Relative Belt Tightening

When the budget gets tight at the Kole house, the vacation budget is eliminated. It's a 100% budget cut, until such time as we can afford it. We eat out 75% less. Entertainment is little more than a trip to the library. New clothing purchases are halted. Etc. In sum, the cuts are pretty harsh.

Elected officials are therefore hilarious in comparison. They whine and moan about 3% or 4% budget cuts. Boo-friggin'-hoo!

Here's an interesting bit from Cato's David Boaz:

Time to stop spending, eh? That would be most people’s response to an unprecedented deficit. And they do mention “irresponsible spending” later in the piece. But somehow, it appears that the governors thought that was a good lead for an article in the Washington Post demanding more federal spending to subsidize state governments.

They lamented the the plight of the state budgets; New York, for instance, asked state agencies “to slash their state budgets by 3.35 percent.” Now, if I had to cut my budget for a new sofa, say, from $1,000 to $966.50, I don’t think I’d call that a “slash”; it’s more like margin of error.

Hilarious. And there are some who make it out that Grover Norquist has won the day, that fiscal conservatism has triumphed, with taxes almost nil, and the federal government shrunk to the size of that of the Polk Administration.

Reason has picked up on this willful ignorance, also, noting how some fans of larger government are tying the downward slide of the Republican Party to the idea that said slide is proof of the failure of fiscal conservatism. I took Balloon Juice to task on this just last week. From Reason's Matt Welch:

"...a strain of curious left-of-center analysis I'm seeing more and more this election: That the Republicans are losing because limited-government ideas don't work, and are no longer popular.

This critique requires a significant leap of logic − that George W. Bush, and his would-be GOP successor John McCain, practice and/or believe in limited government principles."

Fiscal conservatism wasn't even tried out by the Republicans. Tax cut, borrow and spend simply isn't a fiscally conservative ideal. McCain thinks cutting earmarks is a slash, just as NY's governor thinks a 3% nick is a draconian reversion to primitive barbarism.

At the Kole house, and I'm quite sure at many others across the land, when the money isn't there, we radically cut our spending, by as much as 40%. We don't take out loans so that we can keep spending. We don't commandeer from our neighbors under the premise of 'the common good'. We cut spending.

Barr Has Proven His Libertarian Chops

I hope at some point the left-libertarians become comfortable with Bob Barr such that he can stop going out of his way to show his “Libertarian Chops” like this and get to hammering on the biggest issues of the day more exclusively: Iraq/foreign policy; the dollar/taxes/spending/borrowing; energy policy.

There is a great opportunity for Barr to reach the American people very broadly, and it is important that he not self-marginalize by reaching so strenuously within the Libertarian Party. The nomination is won, and the time for this kind of campaigning is over. It ended in Denver, a few weeks ago.

So, as Bill Clinton got "It's the Economy, Stupid" down pat, let's see Barr get these down:

1. Iraq/foreign policy

2. The dollar/taxes/spending/borrowing

3. Energy policy

Barr's positions on the three most important issues of the day are winners. There's no point in him bogging down with correctness on issues of lesser weight.

Pluses & Minuses

I was fairly floored when I saw that Mayor Peterson's recommendation for the budget crisis was the cut all departments by 10%, with the exception of public safety. My gosh, where have we heard this before?! Hoosier Libertarians, myself included, have recommended this as a good policy direction for the entire five years I've been in Central Indiana. That's a plus.

But Peterson also recommended passing his proposed tax hike. Cutting budgets is so good and so necessary that I want to be all praise, but I just cannot. Tax hikes drive out wealth. It doesn't take a genius to understand this. Peterson, being in the land development business, should understand this better than the average politician. And yet, he stands by his tax. It's senseless, breaking things as he fixes them. If he were your child, you'd smack his ass and straighten him out. This is a minus.

The City-County Council passed the tax. Couldn't tell by reading the Indy Star this morning. How could this not be headline news? The CCC just did something to drive more wealth out of the County, giving me more new neighbors here in Hamilton County. Are they hell-bent on making Indianapolis a poverty magnet? It sure seems that way. Reminds me of Cleveland, how it went from a city of about 1 million to 400,000 in 20 years. How? A few small policy decision: a move from neighborhood schools to forced busing. An income tax increase. That's all it took. Major minus.

As usual, my decision to flee Marion County has been reaffirmed. I take very little pleasure in noting this.

Where To Cut First?

The City-County in Indy needs to cut somewhere. The arguments are always about where to do it. Every department head sees their department as the One True Necessary Governmental Agency, and their fiefdom besides. Every sepcial interest group that is served by a particular department holds it as sancrosanct. To paraphrase many great thinkers, there's nothing as permanent as a government office.

A few posts back, I showed a list of the Indy Government page. True, not every link was in fact a government office or program. At the same time, several links begat several more offices and programs. The point was to show that there is a lot of government. The point was to get readers to see the list and have at least a few of the departments seem so wholly irrelevant or of a wish list priority that suggestions could be made as to where to cut so as to more fully fund real priorities, such as public safety- without having to resort to a tax increase.

To me, there are two ways to achieve cuts.

1. The fastest is to decree a percentage budget cut. This eliminates the territorial defense of certain departments that comes with the proposed cutting or elimination of selected departments or programs. If there is the desire to spend a certain amount of money in order to bring public safety forces up to snuff, simply take that dollar figure and divide it by an equal proportion to each of the non-public safety budgets. Voila, there's the money.

Tightening the belts of the non-public safety departments and programs is something that should be happily done by them. It's a sacrifice to them in the name of the greater good. That's the hallmark of government, as I routine hear it told.

2. Target departments or programs for outright elimination. Again, select the amount of money needed to bring public safety up-to-date, and then eliminate programs and departments until you have your figure.

How to do this? Let the 29 City-County Councilors get a list of all the departments and programs. They review this list and vote a ranking, from 1 to 150 or whatever the number is. The votes are weighted by ranking. Public safety is exempt from the vote. Once complete, the lowest voted departments fall until you have the savings necessary to fund public safety.

If you think this type of vote is difficult to tally, keep in mind that the Major League Baseball Writers do exactly this every year in voting retired baseball stars to the Hall of Fame. A handful make the Hall, but those who fail to receive a certain basline number of votes are forevermore excluded from the Hall ballot. If baseball can tally priorities for something as innocuous as Hall of Fame status, certainly the City-County government can do so in tight financial times with the services it delivers.