Death of a Thousand Cuts



Friday’s editorial laments the fact that the state’s budget has become less about reaching higher than making do.

Before the Senate began its debate of the state’s budget on Tuesday, it opened the day’s session, as it always does, with a Bible verse and short prayer from its chaplain. The day’s verse – Job 9:25 – was more prescient than most:

“My days are swifter than a runner; they fly away without a glimpse of joy.”

The state’s senators certainly weren’t exhibiting much joy this week as they painstakingly discussed another year’s budget that tells the state more about where to cut than where to improve. The pressure likely contributed to the bursts of pique that punctuated the budget debate. That frustration may have reached its acme on Thursday morning, when Sen. Robert Ford accused his fellow senators of ignoring him because of his race, and Sen. Jake Knotts took the floor to chide the body into settling down and remembering to show everybody their due respect.

We can share the senators’ frustration. There’s little to celebrate in the budget being discussed. As the editorial board of The State newspaper pointed out earlier this week, “the most striking thing about the budget that the Senate takes up is how much it looks like the one the House passed last month.”

“Both plans underfund our schools and police and prisons. Both will do tremendous damage to the health of our neediest neighbors and further undermine our economy by turning away much-needed federal funds. Both represent a desperate effort to maintain our inadequate status quo even as the maintenance money evaporates.”

Will Garland, chairman of the Horry County Board of Education was encouraged that the Senate budget version does add some money for education. It would give the Horry County school district $40 million next year instead of $32 million in the budget the House put together. But both versions mean less money than the current year and even in the best-case scenario the district will be making cuts.

He’s still crossing his fingers for the Senate’s version of the budget. If that plan holds up, Garland said, “we could put some more money back in programs we were cutting” and the district won’t have to tap reserve funds.

As for the rest of the budget? The State once again summed it up nicely:

“Senators will say their hands are tied, that there’s nothing they can do to markedly improve next year’s spending plan. And if you limit your discussion to the budget and this week, that’s probably true. The failure is not in the writing of the budget, which, properly done, doesn’t change the amount of money available or the basic operations of the government.

“The failure is in the way the General Assembly approaches its job. Even after we’ve tired of counting how many years it’s been since the primary job of budget writers wasn’t to distribute cuts, the Legislature is still focused on … distributing cuts. Not on how best to meet our state’s needs. Not on redefining what our government is and should be. Not on how much money we need to meet those needs and be and do what should be done. Not on how best to raise that money. Just on how to get through another year.

“We can’t continue like this. The way things are being framed right now — fewer services for those who can’t help themselves, less commitment to the educational opportunities that will create a brighter future for the least and the greatest among us — cannot be our accepted future.

“The House at least made some modest efforts at enabling agencies to do their jobs better, with budget provisos that merged the corrections and parole departments, combined some mental health agencies and folded the arts and museum agencies into the parks department. The Senate Finance Committee stripped them out of the budget.

“We don’t fault that move. It was necessary under sensible Senate rules that prohibit making permanent changes to state law as part of the budget. We do, however, fault the Senate’s foot-dragging on separate legislation that the House also passed to implement those changes. If the Senate would pass those bills, then it could appropriately change the funding in the budget to carry them out.

“Those changes do little to solve this year’s budget problems and don’t go very far toward tackling the larger questions of what government will be and how we will fund it. But … if lawmakers would adopt them, then at least they could say that for once, they didn’t pass a budget that does nothing more than continue the desperate, childish practice of holding their collective breath until the economy rebounds and we miraculously have enough money to do everything we keep insisting we’re still going to do.”

 

The state’s senators certainly weren’t exhibiting much joy this week as they painstakingly discussed another year’s budget that tells the state more about where to cut than where to improve. The pressure likely contributed to the bursts of pique that punctuated the budget debate. That frustration may have reached its acme on Thursday morning, when Sen. Robert Ford accused his fellow senators of ignoring him because of his race, and Sen. Jake Knotts took the floor to chide the body into settling down and remembering to show everybody their due respect.

We can share the senators’ frustration. There’s little to celebrate in the budget being discussed. As the editorial board of The State newspaper pointed out earlier this week, “the most striking thing about the budget that the Senate takes up is how much it looks like the one the House passed last month.”

“Both plans underfund our schools and police and prisons. Both will do tremendous damage to the health of our neediest neighbors and further undermine our economy by turning away much-needed federal funds. Both represent a desperate effort to maintain our inadequate status quo even as the maintenance money evaporates.”

Will Garland, chairman of the Horry County Board of Education was encouraged that the Senate budget version does add some money for education. It would give the Horry County school district $40 million next year instead of $32 million in the budget the House put together. But both versions mean less money than the current year and even in the best-case scenario the district will be making cuts.

He’s still crossing his fingers for the Senate’s version of the budget. If that plan holds up, Garland said, “we could put some more money back in programs we were cutting” and the district won’t have to tap reserve funds.

As for the rest of the budget? The State once again summed it up nicely:

“Senators will say their hands are tied, that there’s nothing they can do to markedly improve next year’s spending plan. And if you limit your discussion to the budget and this week, that’s probably true. The failure is not in the writing of the budget, which, properly done, doesn’t change the amount of money available or the basic operations of the government.

“The failure is in the way the General Assembly approaches its job. Even after we’ve tired of counting how many years it’s been since the primary job of budget writers wasn’t to distribute cuts, the Legislature is still focused on … distributing cuts. Not on how best to meet our state’s needs. Not on redefining what our government is and should be. Not on how much money we need to meet those needs and be and do what should be done. Not on how best to raise that money. Just on how to get through another year.

“We can’t continue like this. The way things are being framed right now — fewer services for those who can’t help themselves, less commitment to the educational opportunities that will create a brighter future for the least and the greatest among us — cannot be our accepted future.

“The House at least made some modest efforts at enabling agencies to do their jobs better, with budget provisos that merged the corrections and parole departments, combined some mental health agencies and folded the arts and museum agencies into the parks department. The Senate Finance Committee stripped them out of the budget.

“We don’t fault that move. It was necessary under sensible Senate rules that prohibit making permanent changes to state law as part of the budget. We do, however, fault the Senate’s foot-dragging on separate legislation that the House also passed to implement those changes. If the Senate would pass those bills, then it could appropriately change the funding in the budget to carry them out.

“Those changes do little to solve this year’s budget problems and don’t go very far toward tackling the larger questions of what government will be and how we will fund it. But … if lawmakers would adopt them, then at least they could say that for once, they didn’t pass a budget that does nothing more than continue the desperate, childish practice of holding their collective breath until the economy rebounds and we miraculously have enough money to do everything we keep insisting we’re still going to do.”