CITIZENS Barbara's
Column The Salem Evening News Curing government By Barbara Anderson Government is like a certain type of lottery winner. Not the winner who carefully invests some, shares
some, spends some; nor the person who happily spends it all, then returns to his or her
normal, wage-earning existence. Government is like the person who spends the lottery
winnings and then, because spending money one hasn't earned is so much fun, keeps spending
until filing for bankruptcy. Except that the government doesn't go bankrupt; when the
winnings are gone, it demands -- and usually gets -- more free money from you. This analogy might make it easier to understand why
raising taxes or keeping a tax surplus to reduce government debt usually doesn't work. Spending unearned tax dollars is so much fun that
even humongous amounts of them aren't enough. So the government borrows more and keeps on
spending. This is how the federal government accumulated $5.5
trillion dollars of national debt. It spent as many tax dollars as it could, and it spent
Social Security's alleged "trust fund," then it spent another $5.5 trillion
dollars on top of that. During the Reagan years there was a tax cut, but
there is no built-in limit on federal debt so the spending-addicted federal government
just kept piling it on. Since state and local budgets are required to be
balanced, state debt is better controlled. But the common-sense notion that a tax surplus
can be used to reduce the debt level would be an uncommon result in government. Alcoholics have AA, drug addicts have treatment
centers; there are programs for people addicted to gambling and sex. People who can't stop
spending can get help. But there's no similar program for government's spending addiction
because, unlike other addicts, government usually has no motivation to quit. At the federal level, the debt makes a convenient
excuse not to cut taxes. And the clever addict can get even more money to spend if the
money already spent doesn't solve the problems it was supposed to address. Billions spent on public schools, and the test scores
are abysmal? Have fun spending more. If, because of citizen outrage, a problem actually is
addressed properly, the government quickly finds a new problem that suddenly needs
attention. Welfare reform happened because people finally saw
the suffering of children trapped in the welfare culture. Voters demanded an incentive for
recipients to work instead of having more kids they could not afford, and these voters got
what they demanded -- welfare reform. Today the numbers for welfare recipients and
illegitimate births are down, but the savings from welfare reform are being
"reinvested" in more government programs. State attorneys general successfully sued tobacco
companies for the taxpayer dollars that they determined their states had been spending on
tobacco-related illnesses. After an initial windfall this spring, Massachusetts will
receive roughly $300 million a year. But will it reimburse the taxpayers who provided the
money to deal with these illnesses in the first place? No, Massachusetts will spend the
extra money itself. Spend, spend, spend. Our commonwealth took 207 years to reach a $10
billion budget in 1987. Just 12 years later, our governor proposes a budget of over $20
billion. He offers cities and towns, who have more free cash than ever, almost $500
million more in aid than last year's record amount. And still some of them want
Proposition 2½ overrides this year. Spend, spend, spend. Gov. Paul Cellucci wants to cut the income tax rate
to reduce some of the giant surplus that remains even after giant spending increases. But
House Speaker Tom Finneran, who calls himself a fiscal conservative, uses his
state-of-the-state address to propose more new programs while neglecting to mention tax
cuts. The size and scope of government has grown
dramatically on their watch. It has doubled in 12 years. It will double again soon unless
taxes are cut, the tobacco reimbursement returned to taxpayers, the debt cap maintained
and the spending addiction treated. In his 1998 state-of-the-union speech, President
Clinton told us that "the era of big government is over." We applauded. In his 1999 speech, he proposed increasing the size
of government, according to a National Taxpayer Union Foundation analysis, by $288
billion. Many people applauded again. It's generally understood that addicts need tough
love to help them recover. Family members and friends must learn not to be enablers. The same is true for government. Taxpayers should
demand lower taxes, not only for themselves, but to help their governments kick the
spending habit before it's too late. We can do it together, one tax cut at a time. Barbara Anderson is executive
director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. She writes regularly for the Viewpoint page.
Her biweekly column also appears in other publications. |