Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501240036
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN SORENSEN EDITORIAL EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
WE'VE GOTTEN letters to the editor, predictably, from people in a position to lose directly if Gov. Allen has his way with the budget.
Explore Park, the local library, Virginia Tech's cooperative extension, mental-health community services, anti-poverty programs - for these and other vulnerable causes, official advocates are crying out against cuts, and understandably so.
But more compelling, I have found, are letters - such as to our Readers Forum feature last week - and other evidence suggesting that concern about the governor's plans extends beyond professional partisans and the immediate recipients of threatened funding.
More and more people seem worried about the effects on all Virginians, and on the commonwealth's future.
I know, I know. In delivering less government, Gov. Allen is fulfilling the promise, embraced by voters, of his election bid. That's a powerful deal in itself, on top of which he has cards to play.
Democrats, expecting to be typecast as big spenders blocking tax relief, are gnashing teeth and tearing hair in fear of losing the General Assembly next election. Republican lawmakers are scheming to assure this result, which schemes may not include joining a legislative rebellion against the popular governor.
Even so, I don't think you have to find your own head resting on a chopping block to dread what may be in the offing, or to hope that state lawmakers muster enough gumption and good sense not to be bullied and manipulated into authorizing every swing of Allen's ax.
At the least, his budget proposals have spurred debate about the public sector's value, and that's a good thing.
I would not want to exaggerate the potential impact of his budget amendments, or suggest they entirely lack merit. But I suspect Allen has overplayed his hand, and lawmakers may call his bluff.
To help suppress their fears of appearing insufficiently conservative in this Age of Newt, our representatives might note that some of the governor's own policies and proposals contradict his conservative rhetoric.
Allen, for example, says he wants to:
Get government out of the clutches of central bureaucracy and closer to the citizenry. Right on, I say. But if this proposition applies to the feds' overbearing relationship with states, why not to state government's relationship with localities?
The business gross-receipts tax that Allen wants to eliminate happens to be a local option tax. He would wrest from localities the choice of whether to impose this levy, without granting them flexibility to seek alternative sources of revenue. Likewise, Allen decries unfunded mandates on states. But the effect of his spending cuts, as well as tax cuts, would be to shift more burdens, as well as taxes, onto local government.
Empower people to act on their own good sense, instead of having bureaucrats tell them what to do. Right on, again. But has anyone noticed that this governor, in his own dealings with people he oversees, is less than a model of empowerment?
Leave aside the layoffs he proposes. Allen's treatment of state employees - introducing massive red-tape restrictions on everything from hiring to talking to computer games; centralizing authority in his person and Cabinet; politicizing as much as he can, often at the expense of experience and expertise - suggests not so much em-powerment as insulting micromanagement.
Limit government to essential functions. Allen prominently mentions public security, education and economic development.
So why cut support for police and crime-prevention? Why put Virginia's once-proud system of higher education at further risk of deterioration? Why slash funds for public-private initiatives - such as a Virginia Tech-sponsored management-training facility at the conference center next to Hotel Roanoke - that promise better inducement to economic development than do tax breaks for a few footloose businesses?
Subject government activities to more cost-benefit analysis. By all means - but why stop with environmental regulation? Crime is a big concern. Look at Virginia Cares, a nonprofit outfit independent of the state corrections bureaucracy.
Working on a shoestring budget, Virginia Cares' staff and volunteers assist ex-offenders trying to readjust to society and to lives without crime. Last year, it and similar programs helped 737 ex-convicts find non-subsidized jobs across the commonwealth - appreciably reducing the recidivism rate in comparison with ex-offenders in general, for whom Virginia doesn't care.
Does the governor know how much money taxpayers thereby saved? Is he aware this is by no means the only state-supported activity shrunken and threatened by failure to analyze costs and benefits?
Privatize where possible. Why, then, propose radical cuts for museums, nonprofits supported by Community Services Block Grants, and other public-private partnerships, on grounds that the state doesn't own them?
Community-action organizations are locally based, flexible, responsive, networking, business-supported, volunteer-intensive, entrepreneurial, non-governmental enterprises that contract for services at considerable savings to taxpayers, that match state assistance with private money, and that leverage both for maximum impact in their communities.
How can Allen hope to end welfare as we know it if he eliminates seed money for those who help the impoverished gain self-sufficiency? I, for one, can't imagine.
A lot of Virginians seem to be watching this General Assembly more closely than past sessions. It's not a pretty sight, to be sure, but it may clarify some things.
by CNB