Sunday, February 21, 2010
McDonnell's budget cuts too deeply
Dan Radmacher
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From the RoundTable blog
Last Sunday, I joined the chorus of those taking Gov. Bob McDonnell to task for failing to offer up specifics about how he would close the state's $2 billion budget gap. On Wednesday, McDonnell stepped up and delivered his proposal.
McDonnell said he was waiting for the most recent revenue projections to make his proposals public. I don't buy that after-the-fact excuse, but that's irrelevant. The important thing is that McDonnell's cards are on the table. Virginians can see the costs that will be imposed by the governor's refusal to consider any kind of tax increase.
That cost is steep. I hope Virginia's citizens see just how steep and beg for a more rational approach.
More than a third of the cuts -- $731 million over the two-year budget cycle -- fall on primary and secondary education.
This is on top of steep cuts to public education recommended by former Gov. Tim Kaine. People I've talked to in education circles are despondent. Last year was monumentally difficult because of falling local revenue. Harmful cuts at the state level were staved off only by a last-minute influx of federal stimulus funds. No relief of that magnitude appears to be on the way this year.
One education official I spoke with simply had no idea how local schools could make the necessary cuts, and that was before McDonnell's plans were announced.
Teachers would be laid off. Class sizes would increase, course offerings would decrease. Instructional materials won't be updated or replaced. The fundamental job of educating Virginia's youth would be sacrificed on the altar of "no new taxes."
Even a free breakfast program for low-income students would be eliminated.
Education is not the only victim being lined up to appease that conservative god. Health care for poor children would be slashed as well. McDonnell proposes freezing enrollment in the Family Access to Medical Insurance Security program, which covers children and pregnant women who aren't eligible for Medicaid. As a result of that freeze, McDonnell anticipates nearly 30,000 people wouldn't get the coverage they need.
McDonnell is proposing many other cuts to Virginia's bare-bones Medicaid program, which already ranks 48th in the nation in per capita expenditures.
Cuts to Medicaid are especially short-sighted because the federal government matches every dollar Virginia spends. The $400 million cut in Medicaid reimbursements recommended by Kaine, for instance, would actually cost $800 million.
Mental health services would also be slashed, eliminating 232 beds at facilities around the state. Funding for programs to assist the homeless would be cut by $6 million.
Though higher education escaped largely unscathed, Virginia's college students would take several hits. The Tuition Assistance Grant Program would be cut by $20 million, for instance.
State aid to localities would be cut by an additional $50 million in McDonnell's proposal.
In his response to President Obama's State of the Union address, McDonnell echoed a line the governor spoke during his inauguration: "The circumstances of our time demand that we reconsider and restore the proper, limited role of government at every level."
Apparently, the proper role of government as envisioned by McDonnell doesn't include adequate support of public education. It doesn't include medical care for low-income children.
It does, though, include spending $1.9 billion in general revenue funds to make people think their car tax has been reduced.
McDonnell managed to avoid further cuts to public safety and higher education, but reductions already in effect or on the table are severe enough. And let's not even talk about the ongoing shortfall in transportation.
Virginians need to take a good, hard look at the budget the General Assembly -- with belated help from McDonnell -- will be putting together over the next several weeks. They need to ask themselves if such major cuts to education, health care and other core services are really what they want to see.
Finding other cuts that would affect less vulnerable citizens than those targeted by McDonnell may be possible, but would still be difficult in a state budget that's already faced three years of deep reductions.
When government doesn't have the revenue to adequately serve fundamental needs -- and McDonnell's list of cuts is a tacit admission that Virginia has reached that point -- responsible public officials swallow their pride and their ideology and look for ways to increase revenues.
Kaine proposed one solution, eliminating the state's ludicrous car-tax relief program and using a 1 percent income tax surcharge to replace that billion a year in revenue for localities. McDonnell rejected that out of hand.
The severe budget reductions he offered instead should cause Virginia's citizens to question that decision.
Radmacher is the editorial page editor of The Roanoke Times.
