An (un)extreme view of Mack budget plan
Naples NewsBy Brent Batten
Posted on May 19, 2011
"It will be difficult for the free spenders in Washington to characterize the budget plan being forwarded by U.S. Rep. Connie Mack and others as extreme.
They’ll do it, but it will be difficult.
Difficult because the centerpiece of the plan is a 1 percent annual reduction in the federal budget for the next six years.
One percent and extreme just don’t go together. In this recession, anyone’s who’s experienced only a 1 percent reduction in income is doing pretty well. State and local governments have cut spending by similar amounts. Florida’s Legislature just passed a $69.7 billion budget, a cut of 1 percent compared to the year before. Tuesday, Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk announced his budget for the coming fiscal year will be 3 percent below the current year.
The government-must-do-more crowd will decry any real cut as draconian and argue that the only cuts that should be considered are cuts in the rate of growth. If a projected 4 percent increase becomes a 2 percent increase, then a cut of 2 percent has taken place, that thinking holds.
But voters, faced with real cuts in their own finances, aren’t as likely to accept that reasoning as readily as they did in previous years."
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