We go along, year after year, complaining about the need to have government more reactive to our needs.
We scream for the need to get some relief from the bulging bureaucracy that is breaking our economy.
We stamp our feet and demand action.
Then action comes, and we scream and run for the hills.
Kansas’ new governor, Sam Brownback, is working on cutting state costs.
It’s what we told him to do.
But when he began to cut we acted like no one had ever suggested the idea.
He said the Kansas Arts Commission would just as well be moved out of the state government, according to the Associated Press.
“Brownback says eliminating the agency would save the state $574,000 in the next fiscal year. He proposes giving the commission $200,000 in the next fiscal year as it transitions to a nonprofit corporation supported by private funds.
“Arts commission executive director Llewellyn Crain says the cuts would cost Kansas $778,300 from the National Endowment for the Art, and $437,767 in partnership money from the Mid-America Arts Alliance.”
In addition, the arts commission members maintain that the change will “hurt the state’s economy and cost people jobs,” and we can’t have that, can we?
Can there possibly be any cuts in the government that won’t cause someone to urge that the changes will “hurt the state’s economy and cost people jobs?”
The thing is, we either want to cut government — and that means that government programs will “be cut” — or we don’t.
Smaller government isn’t going to be accomplished by continuing to ad programs, increase funding and forever adding to the army of bureaucrats.
The reality is, when you cut, something bleeds.
— Chuck Smith