According to today’s papers (Globe story, Herald story), Governor Patrick is poised to announce a series of budget cuts this afternoon that are designed to bridge an estimated $600 million budget gap this year.
Published reports indicate that everything could be on the table when the Governor makes these cuts, including deep reductions in spending on social service programs and cutbacks in local aid.
The Governor appears to be saying that he has no other choice but to make these cuts because furloughs of executive branch managers will not save enough money, and because state unions have been unwilling to make concessions to cut costs.
I think it’s necessary to make cuts in our state budget; in fact, I think that spending reductions are long overdue. But I disagree that balancing our budget should require us to provide less support to local services or to the most vulnerable people in our communities who are most in need of assistance. Those are the last places we should look. Instead, we should be focused on finding additional savings and efficiencies within the budget through reform.
Even with the Governor’s cuts, Massachusetts taxpayers still will be spending more than $26 billion a year to run state government. Cuts in administrative functions have been modest at best. Reforms also have been sparse, and what few have been implemented have taken too long to be effective. State payroll has continued to increase and new programs have continued to find their way into our spending plans. And in order to support this spending, Massachusetts taxpayers have been asked to pay more taxes and expect to receive fewer core government services. We need to do better.
I will be watching Governor Patrick’s announcement very carefully to see what happens in this latest round of cuts. I’ll post an update here later this afternoon to let you know what he says and what I think about it.
"What do you expect Governor Patrick to say this afternoon? What do you HOPE he'll say?" Please feel free to post a comment below.
