---

With Republicans taking majorities in the Minnesota Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives, there is now a lot of talk about "cuts". Many people are concerned about government programs they like being cut or are worried that low income people will suffer. I think there is a lot of fear mongering and misinformation going on, so let's take a moment to clarify a few things.

First of all, let's look at the difference between spending and budget cuts. The budget is what the government wants to spend and should not be confused with the actual spending. The budget cuts proposed by the Minnesota GOP do not cut any actual spending. In fact, their budget increases spending by 5% over last year. They merely don't want to increase spending by as much as the Democrats do. The budget that was just passed by the U.S. Congress does not cut any spending and actually increased spending over last year by quite a bit.

Another point that I would like to clarify is that there could be quite a lot of real spending cuts that could be made without decreasing any benefits that are paid to the people who need them. If you were to analyze any government program you would find that a very small percentage of their budget goes to the public who actually needs it. Some of it goes to people who want the benefits, but who don't really need it, and some goes to people who steal it by defrauding the government.

The largest portion of the budget goes to the administrative costs of these bloated bureaucracies. This includes the wages and benefits of the public employees who work there, the buildings where they work and a multitude of other expenses that are too numerous to mention. Included in these costs is also quite a bit of government waste. I've been trying to get some actual percentages on this but have been told that it's just about impossible to calculate.

Why don't we turn the discussion of spending and/or budget cuts to areas we can all agree on? Wouldn't it be refreshing to have our elected officials take a common sense approach to spending cuts and quit wasting our tax dollars? Companies like IBM and Accenture have computer programs that they have offered to the State of Minnesota and the U.S. Government at no charge. These programs could save millions of taxpayer dollars just by preventing waste and fraud, but they've been told "No thanks."

So when you hear or read something about making cuts, please be sure to keep these things in mind. Are they referring to budget or spending cuts? Can cuts be made without hurting the general public? Do they have the facts or are they just telling their point of view?

Let's dispense with the fear mongering and finger pointing and work together to come up with common sense solutions to our government budget problems.



Jan Schultz

Remer, MN

[[In-content Ad]]

---