Where Do We Cut the Fatted Calf?

Apparently, my little post yesterday caused a bit of a stir. That was entirely my intention. It even prompted an interesting comment, an anonymous comment to be sure, but one with points that obviously required addressing. So, I shall attempt to do that in the limited forum we have available. From the general tone of how it began, one would think the commenter felt Libertarians don't like any budget anywhere. This isn't true. They just believe in responsible and well-managed budgets, not fairy tales. The commenter does bring up some interesting figures, all the same, as shown below.

The state's annual budget is about $12 billion divided as follows:

Education: $5 billion
Medicaid: $3 billion
Property Tax Relief: $2.2 billion
Corrections: $1 billion

Total: $11.2 billion

You have $800 million left for DNR, DLGF, Dept. of Health, Dept. of Labor, IDEM, State Police (currently about 250-300 troopers below authorized staffing levels), Dept. of Revenue, Secretary of State, Auditor of State, Treasurer of State, Attorney General, Superintendent of Public Instruction, etc., etc.

I notice he doesn't mention (I'm just going to assume it's a he, if it's a she, my apologies) FSSA. Remember that glorious agency? It is an example of an agency that does nothing and does it well for no one. I've worked for the state. I've seen Family and Social Services in action. It is a typical bloated-government agency that could use serious cutting. Frankly, so does Workforce Development, which from what I've seen has never actually developed a workforce. They hand out unemployment checks and pretend that they can find you a job. Been there to. Lots of dead weight hanging around. And I'm not p!ssing on the employees (ok, well some of them), but those agencies suffer from being legislated into existence, and anything that can be tinkered with and tweaked like a state agency is bound to develop useless apendages, and a lot of them. DNR, IDEM, the State Police, they run decent operations. I'm not saying all agencies can't handle their money. Most do a whole lot with very little. Again, I've seen it.

Secretary of State? What do they do? I mean officially, does our Sec State handle Indiana's relations with foreign governments, anything like that? No, they manage Corporate Division. Cut, cut, cut. It's a library function. And those are just the small agencies he mentions. What about the big ones? If you're going to honestly tell me that there's not significant bureaucratic waste in Medicaid, I'd like some of what you're smoking. That budget could be manhandled down at least 10% without even trying, if a real Republican wanted to do it. Assuming we can only save $10 or $20 million from the peanuts agencies, 10% of Medicaid is by your numbers $300 million. Now there's some change and we didn't even have to raise a tax to do it. No, I don't like Medicaid. It's one of the things helping hospital costs soar out of anyone's reach. It was a benevolent and well-meant program arrived at with the best of intentions, and its claims very clearly pave the road straight to Hell.

Same goes for Education. How much of that $5 billion is going to educate our students and how much goes to administration? You came up with the big numbers. Now's the time to own up to them. Not that the DOE would tell how much goes to Admin, but there's no shortage of studies to tell us that the public school system has gotten top heavy all over the country. How many students are there in Indiana in the public school system? From the looks of it, we could safely guess a little over 1 million. Setting aside that local property taxes already cover almost half of the public school cost, how much does that mean we're spending per kid? A little over $5,000 a piece. Doesn't seem like much does it? But how many teachers is that paying versus how many administrators? Not as easy a statistic to come by? We are paying the State for administration. We are paying for bloated bureaucracy. Is it necessary? What has it gotten us? If parochial schools can do the same job often better with a fraction of the staff, why can't the public schools seem to do it? Explain me that one. If you're dealing with an average 30 student classroom and the total budget for it is $10,000 per student, that's $300,000 an average available per class. And how much are teachers paid again? And I hope you're not going to tell me the other $270,000 to $280,000 goes to the utility bills for the ONE classroom every year. Parents pay for text books. Parents pay for supplies. I know, I am one. So how much is going to the mystical admin? If even 10% of it could be eliminated, and I think that's being exceptionally lightweight,, there's another $500 million.

So, taking a look at that, let's see $10 or $20 from the peanuts agencies, $300 million from Medicaid, $500 million from Education with a redirect of the remaining $4.5 billion to more direct education and less admin, "cultural initiatives" and "awareness programs". It's a school, not a Wellness Center for Pete's sake. Ta-da! I just saved the State of Indiana over $800 million! That's our deficit, and I didn't even break a sweat. Next.

Too easy you say? Easy for me just to say 10% and be done with it? Well, it was just as easy for you to demand it. It's also just as easy for the Governor and legislature to take an honest look at the budget and see that those number's more realistic than they're willing to admit. They can do it. I'd like to have faith that they'll do the right thing, but they ain't exactly blowin' up my skirt with talk of tax increases and symbolic cuts.

Again, reaching back to the great Bill Hicks, this is more of the same from them. "Well, your leaders mispent your tax dollars. And now it's time for you to dig into your pockets, and start payin' this back." I feel like a parent whose kid keeps wrecking his and other people's cars and expecting me to pay for new ones. Well no damn more. It's time to stop. Period.

Ok, now onto another point of our anonymous commenter.

Also, why do Libertarians believe that state government should subsidize local government expenditures? Why shoud the state subsidize town x's police force, or street department, or mayor?

I must've missed the Party meeting on where we expected the State to pay for the Counties. Your point is somewhat moot, because I've never heard one Libertarian anywhere advocate this. Please show me where at say the Indiana Lib site where that's said. If anything, I agree with you on the Counties. They need to get their acts together and significantly tighten local spending. If they can't do that, vote them out and put people in that will. Pet projects dominate local politics. If you want responsible government, those projects must be exposed, and the corporate welfare they engender must cease. Only way to do that often is to expose those in power for the game players they are, which is what we're trying to do. Care to join us?

If 100 percent of local expenditures must be paid for by local taxes, don't you believe that local taxpayer pressure will reduce the spending habits of local government? Also keep in mind that local expenditures have been growing at 6 percent per year for 30 years while state revenue has grown 4 percent per year for 30 years. Local governments have found that it is easy to spend if "their" taxpayers don't have to foot the whole bill.

And again my point exactly. Get the locals to control their spending and the State won't have to fleece the citizenry as much. I see nothing there but a good thing. If the State cuts off some of the counties' allowance, and the counties cut off the State playing with their ill-gotten gains, like the COIT, maybe both will become a little more responsible. Bravo, you sound like a Libertarian already.

So thanks for playing, and we hope to see you here again soon. Buh-bye!