The Governor’s Budget

Governor Kaine released his budget yesterday.  On the Spothas the details (along with various snarky commentary).  The budget is part good news and part bad news, but the bad news outweighs the good news by a ton.

First, the praise: Kaine’s budget includes the smallest spending increase in a dozen years: $4 billion.  That’s an even smaller increase than Mark Warner had in his “tough” budget of 2002 (which went up $4.5B).  Kaine even left more than two billion in projected revenue unspent.

However, rather than be a symbol of frugality, the budget numbers are a warning that when it comes to limiting government, size isn’t everything.  In fact, this budget reminds me of President Bill Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union speech, in which he dramatically announced: “The era of big government is over.”  The trouble is, he meant it in terms of money spent and people employed, not in terms of programs run, regulations implemented, or freedoms curbed.  Bill Clinton spent the rest of his administration arguing not for greater freedom, but for a government more efficient in making citizens dependent upon it.

It is in this vein that one must see Governor Kaine’s budget.  It does not spend dramatically more dollars, but it does dramatically expand government’s reach into every day life.  The myriad of proposals have small spending numbers now, but they are largely down-payments for huge (and expensive) government down the line.  House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith (hardly my favorite person, I might add), said it best in this Washington Times piece:

“The problem is when the bill comes due, we”ll still be here. But we will have a new governor,” he said. “It”s one of those, ‘I will gladly pay you tomorrow for the cheeseburger today.’ “

Contrary to popular belief, intrusive government has consequences well beyond the typical philosophical discussions about the erosion of individual freedoms and the “slippery slope.”  I talked about one of the biggest consequences in this post, but I think it bears repeating: the tens of millions of dollars in mental health funding – spawned by the Virginia Tech shootings – is the exact opposite of what needed to be done.  The most dramatic and dangerous problem today’s children face is nottoo little mental health funding or no government-funded pre-school, it’s the lack of time they spend with their parents because both are forced to work in order to pay the ever-increasing tax bills of federal, state, and local governments.

Once again, it was a quote from 1996 (and from Bob Dole, of all people) that summed up our problem best (New York Times):

In a lot of two-income families one spouse works full time to support the family, while the other works full time to support the Government. It shouldn’t have to be that way in the United States of America.

Indeed, it shouldn’t, but it is.  The average American family pays $14,000 more in taxes than their grandparents’ family did (Americans for Tax Reform); this is why the average American family can no longer feed their children and their governments on one income.

The repercussions of this are endless: single-parent households are doomed to become de facto wards of the state; two-parent households suffer with frazzled parents and children who see far less off them than they should.  Governor Kaine’s budget does nothing to alleviate this; in fact, it just makes things worse.

Cross-posted to the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia