A real budget cut is when an agency gets less money than it did the previous year. Republicans like real budget cuts. A fake budget cut is when the agency gets less money than it asked for. Democrats like fake budget cuts, either to tell the taxpayers that they are not getting ripped off, or to lambast Republicans who appropriate less money than the agency asked for, even when the agency gets more money than it did the previous year.
This was on display on WMUR's Sunday pundit show with Josh Mcelvane this morning. The house finance committee has been whacking Maggie's budget down to size. Josh had two finance committee reps, one Democrat, one Republican, both new faces to me, on the show. Both talked about cuts, whether there was one or was not one. Apparently the cuts are fake cuts, the final trimmed down budget is still bigger than last year's budget. Maggie didn't get as much money as she asked for and that is terrible. It might even mean layoffs in Concord. Oh the horror!
Neither off them spoke of dollar amounts, of how much is going where, of substantial things like finishing up widening I93, providing somewhere to put violent insanity cases other than hospital emergency rooms, or attracting new industry to NH. They just talked about cuts, this is a cut, this is not a cut.
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