Eric Zorn of of The Chicago Tribune checks out the Indiana political landscape and discovers -- surprise, surprise! -- that not everyone in Indiana considers Gov. Mitch Daniels a political hero. Believe it or not, he manages to find a liberal editorial page, a left-leaning economist and the General Assembly's leading Democrat who are willing to say bad things about all the cuts made in state government. Who would have ever guessed?
"In part, he used federal stimulus money and accounting tricks to come up with this surplus," said Indiana House minority leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, in a phone interview Tuesday. "Then he took money from programs for the poor, children, veterans and the unemployed while cutting corporate taxes 25 percent."
Bauer's office provided me a long list of particular budget trims enacted by Indiana Republicans that included a $326 million reduction in K-12 education, a $37 million reduction in higher education, a $321 million cut to social service programs, a $62 million cut to the corrections and public safety budget, $44 million from economic development and roughly $15 million from environmental protection.
This is what those of who complain of a liberal bias are talking about. The writer makes the assumption that cuts are bad, then goes out and finds people willing to say that.
But, look, a balanced budget in troubled times does not just happen. It comes from fiscal disipline and results in real cuts to real programs that affect real people. Even conservatives get that, folks -- especially conservatives. Left out of the analysis is any discussion of what government should and shouldn't do in a rational world and what we should be willing to pay for it.
