Former Pawlenty chief of staff Charlie Weaver talks some budget sense in today's Strib, but he also tries to pass off a flawed assumption. Let's start with the sense:
Spending smart means government should pay for what works — and stop paying for what doesn't. Government should set clear, measurable expectations based on outcomes, not state-mandated inputs. We should fund initiatives that meet our goals — and fix or replace programs that fail to deliver. By spending less on things that don't work, we can spend more on things that do.
Government should do more to make itself accountable for achieving results. The position here of Weaver, a former Republican legislator and now executive director of the Minnesota Business Partnership, is very close to that of the progressive Growth & Justice, which offers specific recommendations along these lines.
But as any business leader knows, cost-cutting and eliminating ineffective programs are mainly survival tactics. Only in commodity businesses would they offer more than mediocrity. Minnesotans expect something better.
The honest hold-the-line-on-taxes advocates like Weaver know government spending falls short in areas that have strong payback, such as transportation and early childhood education. If they agree more economy-boosting spending is needed, and ideology won't allow their solution to be higher taxes, they have only a few choices. They can borrow money, raise it through fees and other non-tax revenue sources like casino gambling, shift expenses to local governments, or promise to find money in the current budget — "spending smart."
We've all seen how the first three worked under the Pawlenty Administration, which had four years to work on the fourth option as well..
To reassure us that spending smart will work, they conjure up the image of the frugal family bravely balancing the household budget:
Spending smart means setting priorities. Minnesota has real needs, including better student achievement, more affordable health care, and better roads and transit. Lawmakers should do what families do all the time: set priorities and live within their means.
Maybe that's how it works for the families in Weaver's circle. They are deciding between eating at Applebee's or eating at home, between buying a new snowmobile or making do with the old one, taking a vacation or painting the house. Then junior can afford to go to the U of M, where tuition has risen almost 50% since 2002.
But Weaver assumes the metaphorical state family has adequate means to begin with — or at least does not have its children falling through holes in the safety net.
No family in its right mind thinks only in terms of how to reduce its spending. It also thinks about increasing its income.
Why should government be any different from families or businesses faced with inadequate resources? Cut, yes. Improve, yes. Find more, yes.
