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Republican Gov. Jan Brewer |
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Starve The Beast is Alive and Kicking in Arizona
WASHINGTON (Democratic DAD) February 1, 2009 — “Starve the beast” is a fiscal strategy used by Republican conservatives, whereby budget deficits are created through tax cuts in order to force future reductions in the size of government.
The term, “starve the beast” was developed by David Stockman, Budget Director in the Reagan administration. After decades of trying to reverse the socially progressive programs of FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society, namely Welfare, Social Security, Medicare, etc., to no avail, Republican conservatives gravitated to the idea that the key to ending these programs was not to fight them, but to reduce the taxes available to fund them. It is really quite simple - No money, No programs. Grover Norquist, an early supporter of George W. Bush’s bid for the White House, and founder of the Americans for Tax Reform at Reagan’s request, summed it up perfectly in his now famous statement, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
The idea is to cut taxes to such an amount that funding no longer exists for programs. Being that most Americans feel that they are over taxed, cutting taxes is usually not a legislative hard sell. The hard sell would be to cut taxes and programs in the same year. But Republican conservatives are not so foolish as to try to accomplish both simultaneously. They know that the memory of the American public is short and that a gap of at least a few years is needed between tax cuts and program cuts in order for “starve the beast” to work. On the federal level, Reagan started the country on the road to “starving the beast” by creating budget deficits in the 1980s. Although Clinton reversed the trend in the 1990s, Bush made sure that the federal government was well on the way to “starving the beast” through his continuous budget deficits, as well as his uncanny ability to double the national debt during his eight years in office.
Now let’s take a look at Arizona. Just three short years ago, in 2006, Arizona had a budget surplus of $1 billion. At that time, Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano did not want to go along with the push by the Republican controlled Legislature for a 10 percent across-the-board cut in individual income tax rates. She favored rebates that would have been temporary. If temporary rebates had passed at the time, the higher tax rates would now be back in place and the current $1.6 billion budget deficit would not exist. But that is not what happened. During her tenure as governor, Napolitano had fought the Legislature many times. She had used her veto pen when necessary, and had wheeled and dealed when necessary to forward her progressive agenda. Unfortunately, at the time tax cuts vs. temporary rebates were being debated, another fierce battle was raging. Democrat Napolitano was pushing for desperately needed full-day kindergarten, and the Republican Legislature was calling it day care and free babysitting. A compromise took place. Full-day kindergarten was approved by the legislature and signed into law by the governor, as was the 10 percent across-the-board tax cut.
Now, let’s fast forward to Arizona 2009. On January 20th, Napolitano resigned her position as governor to become Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration. If the governor resigns, according to Arizona law, the Secretary of State becomes governor. Republican conservative Jan Brewer is now governor of Arizona’s. Governor Brewer, and the Republican conservative legislature, are of one mind. Because of that, it did not take very long for the wheels of the “starve the beast” policy to go into motion. Two days after being sworn in a governor Brewer proposed a budget that would cut $1.6 billion in spending with the bulk of the cuts taking place in education (K-12 & University), as well as AHCCS (Arizona Medicaid) and other social programs.
Yesterday, January 31st, the
Legislature finalized budget cuts for the 2009 budget. The budget cuts $300
million from education, (prior to this, Arizona was #49 in per pupil funding),
$90 million from various welfare and social-service programs, $22 million from
prisons, $25 million form state parks, $600 million from various agencies and $
22.5 million from the 21st Century Fund, ending a program that had provided
grants to boost bioscience and technology. According to Brewer, these budget
cuts, along with an expected $500 million in federal stimulus aide should ease
the situation at this time, but, “Additional fixes are very likely to be
required for the fiscal 2009 budget, and even more difficult decisions remain as
we confront the realities of a $3.4 billion deficit for fiscal year 2010.”
NEVER was the restoration of the 10 percent individual income tax rate, cut just
three short years ago, mentioned, discussed or proposed, even though it would
have eliminated the 2009 budget deficit and cut the 2010 deficit in half.
Yes, “Starve the Beast” is alive and kicking in Arizona.
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