The more I think about the idea of approved roughly $3 billion in stand-alone cuts to education in the 2008-09 FY, I am gelling on the fact that to the extent that these cuts that represent just over 10% of needed cuts to fix the state's fiscal imbalance, they also push out any imperative to make other cuts for at least a month…

I am NOT a “policy” guy, I admit that. So that gives me license to do some generalizing. In the Governor's proposal to deal with the $24 billion problem, rougly $17 billion of his proposals are cuts, with a presumption that said cuts will go into effect on July 1. If we were to approve the $3 billion “kick the can” proposal advocated by Capitol Democrats and Assembly Republicans, this would ensure that Dems wouldn't have to face more cuts for at least a month…

So, 1/12 off of $17 billion… (I'm not near a computer or calculator). Let's call is $1.5 billion.

So already the “savings” from the immediate non-comprehensive cut has been “discounted” by 50% before you add in inevitable other costs associated with pushing out a real solution for another month…

The moral of this story is that there will always be a “reason” to look to short term ways to kick the can. But what is needed now is determination by Republicans to hold the line and refuse to “feed the beast” until there is a real, comprehensive $24 billion solution that ensures that we will go through all of FY '09-'10 without having to deal with another crisis.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.