The Budget Dance Continues

By: Carl | December 16, 2008, 7:04 pm

It's coming down to revenue estimates, and the revenue estimates probably haven't come down enough even yet. 

The Governor's revised revised budget that Nick highlighted in the Montana Roundup today (12/16) continues to nod in the direction of reality by acknowledging that the economic downturn will make less money available.  Now the question is how low will it go, and how low can it go before real cuts are required?  We're looking at that now, as are a bunch of other people, too I suspect.

I'd be pretty happy for now if we jcould ust change the language a little to better reflect the reality.  The Governor said:  “This budget does not cut programs,”  We’re cutting increases (in program budgets). We are going to deliver more with the same money or slightly less.”  In other words, all the "cuts" aren't cuts at all.  They're just reduced increases. 

So let's try to call things what they are.  Smaller increases aren't cuts, they're smaller increases.  How about we say that the budget won't grow by the amount the Governor's original budget requested, but it will still increase over and above the 40+ percent it's already gone up during his administration?  Then we can have an honest debate about what the budget should be and what we can afford.

Just a thought.

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