Sadly, for once, Georgia is providing an example for the federal government in terms of the way it is conducting business.
True, it’s only because the state requires that its budget be balanced, but as the 2010 session of the Georgia Legislature convenes, one of the first items of business will be to slash state spending by $1 billion or more.
That will be devastating. Programs will be cut, some possibly eliminated. Education will likely be hit hard. But in the end, the state’s fiscal viability will stand.
The economy — and Georgia’s constitution — are shrinking state government and, as a result, local government. Meanwhile, the federal government has accelerated deficit spending that has been out of control since the Reagan administration in what is likely America’s biggest security threat.
At the end of the day, Georgia must decide what kind of government it wants within its constitutional restraints. As the revenue grew, so did state and local government, but as the money flow declines, now comes the task of pruning government growth.
The devil is in the details. Prisons or schools? Indigent defense or health care for the poor? Adequate mental health services or environmental protection? Cut services, increase taxes, do both? How do you balance the revenue available against the human needs that, to some degree, were not adequately met when the economy was sound?
As impossible as that is, attempting it as Georgia is doing is preferable to the federal government’s long-standing practice of covering shortfalls by borrowing. It can be argued that increased federal spending was or is necessary to prevent an even worse economic catastrophe, but without a doubt the burgeoning federal debt is racing toward a tipping point that, if reached, will make the current recession seem extremely mild in comparison. To be truthful, America has been steaming pell-mell toward that point of no return for years, gathering speed during the spend-more-tax-less Reagan and Bush administrations, slowing slightly during the Clinton years and now racing on the strength of massive new spending under the Obama Administration.
Something inside Washington, DC’s beltway seems to foster the impression that there is no limit to the debt load that this nation can carry, but the experience of millions of Americans over the last two years demonstrates otherwise. If this trend is not reversed, at some point — and no one knows where that point is — the debt-based American government will, like Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, collapse under its own weight.
Nothing can minimize the pain and heartbreak that Georgia’s spending cuts will cause, but the long-term effect of America’s unwillingness to do the same thing on a national level will ultimately be much more painful. Georgia’s constitution forces it to make the hard decisions necessary for its long-term economic stability. The federal government lacks any such incentive. A trillion dollar deficit is the result.
