Patrick McSweeney


 

Barnie's Next Homework Assignment

Read the state Constitution and write a paper explaining why the General Assembly cannot obligate future legislatures to spending hikes.


 

Barnie, you were in detention for not finishing your homework when I tried to reach you a week ago. (See "Hither the Surplus?") I was hoping to talk to you about your criticism of my suggestion that politicians stop talking about long-term spending commitments because that phrase is a smokescreen.

When you finish your homework assignment on the Virginia Constitution, you'll know that our elected state representatives can't commit public funds for more than two years at a time. Unlike their counterparts in Congress who have made most of the federal budget "uncontrollable," our legislators in Richmond are constitutionally obligated to set spending priorities every two years.

That's a good thing. We have a wonderful tradition here in Virginia of leaving voters and taxpayers in control. There was even a revolution about that, as I recall, but that's the next homework assignment.

Virginia voters have the opportunity to change direction through elections. One set of elected officials can't put those who may follow in a straitjacket. That is a prerequisite of a republican form of government.

If taxpayers surrender control over spending by accepting rigid formulas that dictate future spending, they might as well give control to a distant potentate. The result would be the same.

Our lawmakers have enacted laws that, on their face, seem to put spending for many functions of state government, such as public education, on automatic pilot. Powerful interest groups strive to lock in "permanent" taxpayer funding for their pet programs at pre-established levels. That's not good for Virginia taxpayers.

Most legislators prefer not to evaluate how money is spent on state programs every two years. They prefer to enact spending formulas that deflect attention from themselves. "Blame the Standards of Quality, not your elected representatives," they seem to say.

Having a spending formula for just about every state program allows liberals to claim at election time or whenever they propose a tax increase that state revenues are not keeping pace with the commonwealth's "commitments." Never mind that the assumptions on which these formulas were initially based are no longer valid (and, perhaps, never were). Instead of undertaking the painful political task of re-evaluation, many legislators have chosen instead to raise taxes so that our "commitments" can be honored.

Even if long-term spending commitments made for good public policy, they aren't constitutional in Virginia. You could try to amend the state constitution to make them legitimate. Until that happens, let's obey the state's fundamental law.

There is another, more troubling aspect to your column. You claim that public investment in "societal infrastructure" is what spurs growth in the private sector. There appears to be no limit to what that term encompasses. Government is inefficient, as you concede. Yet, you want government to fund "education, transportation, health care, research, law enforcement, the environment, and on and on and on."

Our elected officials often talk about the commonwealth's "core functions" without detailing what they are. Under your definition, there is very little that wouldn't be a "core function" of state government.

Here's another homework assignment. Was it the public or the private sector that initially provided Virginia's highway, canal and rail systems? I'll give you a clue: The state didn't have a Department of Transportation until long after 1776.

Proclaiming, as you do, that government must assume responsibility for virtually all of our wants and needs makes you sound like a socialist. That was once a powerful epithet in Virginia. Perhaps, no more.

Whatever happened to freedom? Patrick Henry didn't say: "Give me security or give me death." As I recall my homework assignment, he said: "Give me liberty or give me death."

-- October 17, 2005

 

 

 

 
 

 

Contact Information

 

McSweeney & Crump

11 South Twelfth Street
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 783-6802

pmcsweeney@

   mcbump.com

 

Read his profile here.