I understand that “high profile” cuts are a loss leader to prepare the population for future tax increases – chumming the waters so to speak. What I am not clear about is what state governments can afford to cut. State governments are focused on their populations – that’s their charter. The federal government does less for most states on the East coast than their state governments do. I think it’s time for the tax “donor” states to start holding back from the Federal government.

But how can we be so sure that we’ll pay MORE in the long run? Suppose a state cuts 100 workers for at-home elder care and saves, oh, let’s say 8 million dollars for one year. How do we know that we the taxpayers end up paying more than 8 million dollars for the resulting extra cost of the acute care and so on that the less supported elders consume?

My point is that if one desires to have a discussion about cuts on the basis of a cold, hard, cost-benefit analysis, you need actual data, fair and comprehensive. I am not troubled by someone arguing against service cuts on the basis of the cuts possibly being inhumane. But the fact that they may seem inhumane does not speak to their cost. At least not the cost in dollars.

Here’s the thing: I don’t think many folks question that cutting services can potentially have a moral and emotional cost for society as a whole, or a concretely negative effect on those who lose these services. The narrow budgetary question is whether or not the total monetary costs to the state for services to the affected population actually go up after services are cut. What I see here so far is one quoted government official simply maintaining that this is so without reference to supporting data, and you (Justin) declaring that this dynamic is factual and proven.

Here in MA, state agencies are making showy symbolic cuts geared to get people upset, and they are making extremely dire threats about gross cuts in services. These seem at least to me to be geared to soften public opposition to tax hikes. But I am still waiting for them to show us their books, and to find out where all that money went from the high budget growth of the last decade.

I think it is very safe to say that at this point in time the people (at least those in MA) are extremely skeptical of budget fixes that work primarily on the basis of jacking up taxes. We want to see far fewer state workers making much lower salaries at the upper echelons (80k +) and we want to see pension reform that goes MUCH farther than closing a few of the custom loopholes that legislators have crafted for themselves and their buddies.

I am NOT eager to see cuts to the jobs of the rank-and-file folks renewing licenses, checking unemployment and welfare benefits, or providing education and protecting public safety. But I would LOVE to see across the board cuts to the salaries of anyone making 80k or 6 figures, and I would love to see pensions reformed to put an absolute ceiling on the maximum annual pension benefit granted. I truly cannot see any reason why any state employee should get a 6 figure plus annual pension. Anyone making 6 figures as a salary should be able to set aside enough dough to comfortable supplement a pension of 60-70-80k, which many rank-and-file workers would LOVE to be looking at.

Here in Texas we have a rabid right-wing governor who will not do anything for social programs of any kind if he can get away with it. And mostly, he can get away with it since the state legislature is controlled by the ultra-conservatives.

Some people might say that the ultimate method of democracy to be practiced in the US must occur at the state level where “people” can decide for themselves. Texas is a state that belies that description — as is Utah, and many other conservative-dominated governments. That is where the ultimate battle over “safety nets” will be fought. Controversy and debate at a national level is the distraction that creates the reality.

Tennessee had a budget crises so they drastically reduced their MediCare program TennCare. One of the people thrown off was Nikki White. As a result she couldn’t manage her Lupus. She ended up in the ER (surprise surprise). The total bill was nearly seven figures. And she died anyway. So Tennessee lost a taxpayer, and spent nearly $1,000,000 in a vain attempt to save Ms. White’s life, but they did save like 2 grand on health insurance. If you ran a business like that Congress wouldn’t give you a bail-out. But Gov. Bredesen has gotten numerous accolades for his deft handling of the budget situation.

Delphi, an auto parts company, tried to balance it’s health care budget by implementing plans with high deductables. The theory was if we pay for less we’ll pay less. Back in the real world their workers got sick, figured it would get better without a doctor’s visit, and decided to do some smart budgeting of their own and not pay for an unnecessary Doctor’s appointment. For most of them this worked out. But a select few didn’t get better. They got worse. When they fanally admitted they were in trouble thy were very expensive to fix. Delphi’s insurance bill actually went up.

I think we can all agree that the die is cast on social safety nets.

No, we can’t. We can agree that abolishing them entirely is politically impossible at this time, but we can’t agree that this situation will last forever, or that, the political realities of it aside, such “safety nets” are, in any configuration and at any cost, inarguably a good idea.