Who Won The Debate?

[GMDino]

(09-27-2016, 04:15 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The problem with the idea of budgeting a government like a business, or even a household, is that they just don't correlate in many ways. Both a household and a corporation have more control over their revenue stream and their expenses than a government does.

The most powerful check any legislature has on the government is the power of the purse. It is absolutely necessary for the body of the people to have that power so that the executive is reined in. That being said, it is also the thing that makes it tremendously difficult to budget in the government sector. A government agency has no control over their revenue stream, that is entirely something determined by the legislature. An executive agency can make requests, but funds are budgeted and appropriated by the legislature. Every agency is essentially lobbying the legislature for a piece of the pie to do their jobs. Sometimes, more often than not, that funding is short of what is actually necessary.

The amount that the legislature is basing this on it a revenue forecast of the taxes. We aren't talking about using the tax revenues from the prior year, no, we ware talking about building a budget on what a room full of economists are estimating will be the tax revenue for the upcoming year. You can see the problem with this already, I am sure. The fun part is that states often run a biennial budget cycle, so forecasting two years out. The only way to raise this revenue is to increase taxes, which in this political climate is not something anyone is willing to admit or do.

On top of all of that, in a corporation or a household, the people making the decisions about the budget have a much more ground level understanding of the finances as well. Even a CEO of a Fortune 500 company that is so far removed from the day-to-day has a better understanding of the financial situation of the company than a legislator on a finance/budget/appropriations committee. So while the people at the ground level in government can make decisions about what to spend the appropriated money on, the rest of the control rests with people that have no idea. And the ground level isn't going to give up any of their money without a fight because if we do with half of our appropriated amount this year, guess what will happen next year.

The whole system for governmental budgets is pretty ridiculous. People don't want to hear what the answers actually are to solve the problems. Instead they want people to tell them things like "I can run a business good, I'll do the same to the government." We expect everything but we don't want to pay for it. Look at Colorado. The only reason weed became legal there was because they needed a new revenue source. They passed a constitutional amendment that made it so increasing taxes on took a referendum. This, of course, is never going to happen. So marijuana being legal and regulated was completely an economic choice to close budget gaps. Of course, there is a legal question of whether Colorado has a constitutional government because of the amendment they passed, but that's another story. But they had to cover that gap because even though there were revenue shortfalls, people weren't going to stop needing the services of the government. That's the position government will always be in. We have to supply services to the people, the people will never accept anything less, but they will fight tooth and nail against paying for it.

Sorry for the semi long rant that really didn't answer your question too well.

Eh, better answer than I usually get.