There is simply no need for a state spending cap

SENATE LEADERS are backing a far less offensive approach to spending caps than are the House and the governor. Their plan only restricts the actions of the Legislature itself, rather than trying to dictate their preferences to cities and counties. It would not make it literally impossible for the Legislature ever to raise taxes.

But while the pig might look a little less homely with some lipstick and eye shadow and might even smell better after you squirt it with perfume, it’s still a pig.

The call for spending caps is based on the assumption that our state is on a drunken spending spree and that legislators are driving us all into the poor house with excessive, and increasing, taxes.

Those assumptions bear no relationship to reality.

Does the Legislature spend money on things we could do without? Of course so. It creates new programs when the ones we have don’t accomplish our goals, but doesn’t eliminate the old ones. It squanders money on counter-productive policies such as locking away nonviolent offenders for excessive terms. It pays for festivals and local projects that the state has no business funding.

But it also spends less than it should on essentials.

We have some of the most dangerous highways in the nation not just because our traffic laws are too weak, but also because we won’t invest the money we need to maintain and upgrade crumbling roads and bridges and pay for enough troopers to enforce those laws. It even looks like some of the videotaped cowboy antics of our troopers stem from inadequate training — the result of lawmakers’ unwillingness to spend enough to make sure our cops are taught to be professionals.

We don’t hire enough prison guards to keep dangerous criminals from escaping; we recently learned that a dramatic escape occurred when there was not a single guard on duty. We don’t provide enough treatment to keep the dangerously mentally ill out of our hospital emergency rooms, where they compromise our ability to get treatment for actual emergencies.

We don’t offer 4K to all poor kids, much less enrichment programs for younger children, even though the courts have made it clear that we have an obligation to do so, and even though there can be no doubt that early intervention will save money in the long run. We don’t give poor kids in poor communities the same chance to get a good education as kids in wealthier communities.

In fact, even if we eliminated all the waste, squeezed all the efficiencies we could out of government and changed all those expensive policies that serve no useful purpose, and put all of the savings towards our critical needs, we still probably wouldn’t be covering those basic needs. We can’t know that until we try — which the Legislature has shown no inclination to do — but it’s a safe bet, simply because we spend less per capita, and as a percentage of our income, than other states. As a result, we need to increase spending on essentials faster than other states just to catch up.

Against this backdrop, our legislators are seriously talking about placing a cap on the amount state spending can increase. Ignore the fact that this is an assault on the very notion of representative democracy — the idea that we elect people to make smart decisions based on the current situation, the idea that legislators today cannot possibly predict what future legislators will need to do. There is simply no justification for such a cap — even one that has been dolled up to make it less awful than it could be.