Pivot and Drive Like a House Republican (Part 2 in Our How-To Budget Guide)
Submitted by .Sean on May 22, 2009 - 9:09am
 Page Two from Speaker Richard's Playbook. |
To budget like a Republican, you've got to know how to play like a Republican. And that means pivots, rebounds, misdirections and flagrant fouls -- and doing it without shame. This is Part Two in our series of How to Budget Like a Republican. Part One is here, and the full timeline is here.
- Step 1: Promise you're going to have a tough, conservative budget that doesn't use federal dollars for ongoing expenses (or use them at all).
- Step 2: Spend like crazy.
Once you feel like you've developed sufficient credibility as a budget hawk, you should feel entitled to go back on all of those promises and spend on all of the programs you see fit. Of course, you're going to have to keep talking a good game (No money for the lazy poor! No money for slavery!) Because the goal isn't to be intellectually consistent -- it's just to give you cover to do all the things you said you wouldn't.
Observe:
| Step 2: Pivot, Abandon Step 1, Play Freely | March 15 | Truman State professor states that "level of deliberation" in the House on budget matters is "really freighting." Candy Young, a political science professor at Truman State University, has overseen the school's government internship program since 1991. She is appalled at the change in the way Missouri's budget is crafted. | |
| March 25 | House reverses course on cuts to Amtrak, meals on wheels, other programs. | ||
| March 27 | Allen Icet continues to massage definition of "one-time expenses." It's a "flexible" definition, we're told. | ||
| March 28 | Icet pushes TABOR idea to strangle state funding. Springfield Superintendent Norm Ridder says HJR 23 is "alarming." | ||
| April 7 | House continues to put together its spending wish list. "The House's approach seems to be based on asking lobbyists and special interests what they want built," says Nixon spokesman Jack Cardetti. | ||
| April 15 | Icet's committee appropriates hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funds for institutions of higher education. | ||
| April 20 | GOP-controlled Budget Committee approves more than $1 billion from the federal stimulus package on scores of projects ranging from parking garages to social service programs. They couldn't get enough of it, gobbling up more than $1 billion for pet projects in their districts and fulfilling the wish lists of bureaucrats and lobbyists. Ron Richard later describes this period as a "spending frenzy." |
