Here is today’s lesson in our bilingual education program. For all the complaints that conservatives have about bilingual education in schools, it is actually a bigger problem in one really important area-government budgeting. Government budget experts do not communicate in English. Yes, the words they utter have English-like sounds, and the markings they make on paper have English-like appearance, but the sounds and the marks they make do not have English meanings. It is a foreign language, spoken every day in the halls of power around the country, and no one complains about it.
For instance, when they say they wish to "implement new sources of revenue," that means they want to take more money from you or your neighbor. For instance, they may wish to "increase user fees." They will say that it is only fair for the user of a service to have to pay for that service. Like the DMV. Why, the car tax is simply a user fee. Of course, if you don’t pay the fee, you can go to jail (because if your car is not registered you can be arrested), but you are using this valuable government service.
They will never call it a tax increase. Tax increase is a four letter word to a speaker of budget-ese. It is a tax extension or revenue enhancement. It is never a tax increase. And they, and their sycophants in the media, will chastise anyone who uses that word (except, after the vote has been taken, they will use that word to defeat any Republican who voted for the tax increase in the next election, or they will use it to call Republicans hypocrites if they do vote for it, but other than that, before the vote on the "revenue enhancement" the words are blasphemous or vulgar).
Or the word "services." When you and I hear the word service, we think of a plumber or a maid, or even a lawyer or accountant, someone who does something for us to make our life better. When the government uses the word "services" most likely they are referring to a regulator or a tax collector, somebody who does something to us. We, of course, have to pay for such valuable "services."
My favorite word in the budget language though is cut. As the Democrats said in the last go round of budget "cuts" — "We have cut $9 billion from this budget." When you and I hear this, we think "Oh, today spending was $10 billion, now it is $1 billion. Good for them, government is shrinking." Except, when they say they cut a government program, they don’t mean they actually reduced spending on that program. The word "cut" for the speaker of budget-ese has several meanings, depending on the context, and it can have all of its meanings at once.
For instance, if the "cut" is from the baseline budget, that means that last year, the government program spent $10 million, and this year, the government budgeter wants to spend $15 million. If the Legislator says "NO, you only get $12 million," the budgeter complains because he or she has been "cut" by $3 million.
Or, if the today, the government agency spends $10 million in general fund revenue, and they figure out how to use "user fees" as a means to pay for $3 million of these important "services" (usually the fee is "enhanced" to pay for it), the agency will say they have "cut" $3 million from their budget, even though their spending has not been reduced one thin dime.
Of course, if they are reduced from the baseline by $3 million and shift funds from user fees by $3 million, they will say they "cut" $6 million from their program, even though their increase from the previous year (from the example we have been using) was from $10 million to $12 million. That is the wonder of budget-ese, a $2 million increase in spending is transformed into a $6 million cut simply by using these English sounds that do not have English meanings. The public is blissfully in the dark, thinking that government is shrinking, because that is what they were told, when all the while government is growing, at astronomical rates, during an recession (or an economic downturn, as this language would call it).
So, last week, when the Democrats and the Governor said they "cut" over $9 billion from the budget, they didn’t. From all I can gather, they really only reduced spending by a little over $3 billion. The rest was fund shifts and reductions from the baseline. Of course, the tax increase they are asking for will actually be $12 billion.
But that is not really correct either, because, once they implement the tax increase, they will reduce economic activity in the state so much that it will only produce about $5 billion in the following budget year, which will then disappear in the budget year plus one, because it will plunge the state further into its economic downturn (as has happened each time the state has actually increased taxes).
That won’t, however, be because the bureaucrats and politicians didn’t want $12 billion. It will be because they don’t realize that you are smarter than them, and when they raise your taxes, you just move out of state, or figure out some other way to not have to pay tribute to the power mongering tax tyrants. They think you don’t understand their budget-ese. They are right, but you understand the language of taxes, and they don’t understand that—yet.