How does government spending get so out of control? You and I both know we can’t spend more than we earn for any length of time, but that doesn’t seem to register with those elected to political office, particularly at the federal level. One would think that, at some point, they would stop spending, but they don’t. That phenomenon leads to my seventh rule of politics:
“Democrats want to increase spending for education and social services, and cut transportation and public safety. Republicans want to increase spending on transportation and public safety, and cut spending on education and social services. They reach a compromise to get a budget by increasing spending on everything.”
At the federal level, public safety is mostly national defense spending, and social service spending is welfare and social security. Education and transportation are pretty much the same at both state and federal levels. At the state level, public safety is cops and firefighters.
In every budget battle, the disputes about spending, what gets cut, what gets increased, and how spending categories get treated in the budgets tend to fall along the lines described in the seventh rule. Budget negotiations take place, each side trying to protect their favored spending priorities, their sacred cows. As the budget deadline approaches, internal and public pressure increases to get a budget. The press and lots of people claim that, if they don’t get a budget, the electeds are not doing their job. Why should they get paid for not doing their job? The pressure builds, and ultimately they reach a compromise to get the budget, and that compromise is to just increase spending on everything. Year and year, this continues, and government spending gets more and more out of control.
My first observation about this vicious cycle is that it is partially due to the public asking for the wrong thing. If we actually want less spending and smaller government, we should not condemn those who vote against more spending, and threaten their paycheck. It’s just that simple. That means if voting NO on the upward spiral spending means the government doesn’t get a budget, then great. Stopping spending is more important than getting a budget.
Second, it has been my experience that a lot of electeds get into office with an agenda, sometimes spoken and sometimes not, that there are “untouchable” programs. Once they stake out that position to the leadership in an elected body, that becomes a dealing point for increasing spending. That happens with both Republicans and Democrats. On more than one occasion in our private caucuses, I would hear my Republican colleagues announce that they would not vote for a budget that included a cut to this or that program, usually police or fire. The Dem leadership would then obtain the vote of these Republicans for increased spending in these areas, exempting those areas from cuts, as long as that Republican voted for their desired increases in social spending. And the vicious cycle continued year after year during my time in the Legislature.
If the voting public had no agenda, like the elected can cut anything and everything except my social security, those electeds who oppose increased spending would feel the freedom to prevent the enactment of a budget. The challenge is that sectors of the voting public have their sacred cows, whether it is social security, or cops, or firefighters, or education or freeway construction, or something else, and if any elected tries to sacrifice their sacred cow in favor of protecting future generations from the disaster that is coming from uncontrolled spending, the electeds hear about it. The electeds then get weak-kneed about cutting spending, and spending continues apace.
That is why I call this phenomenon a rule. As long as we as a society protect our sacred cows from cuts in government spending, we will be see increased spending. That means that we, you and I, are stealing from our children and grandchildren for our own selfish purposes. And both sides of the political spectrum, in both elected bodies and the voting public, are responsible for this lack of budgetary self control.