The Budget of Procrustes

Procrustes was a mythic bad guy in the Greek myths (eventually done in by Theseus).  He’d capture travelers and put them on his special-made bed.  If they were too small, he’d stretch their bodies on the rack until they fit. If they were too long for the bed, though, he’d cut off their limbs until they fit.

While driving to the airport in Houston yesterday, I caught a brief snippet of some yahoo talk radio guy grudgingly admitting that people were ticked off about all the proposed state budget cuts in Texas — cuts necessary because the state is in awful shape fiscally because the governor papered over their budget problems through Federal funding that he was, all the while, decrying as evil and wasteful.

Anyway, after admitting that the citizenry of Texas was, indeed, unhappy about all this, the yahoo commented, “But if you’re going to cut the government down to size, it’s going to be painful.”

This is a common theme in a lot of political commentary from the Right, and it boils down to the proposition that government is too big, too bloated, too expensive, and needs to be cut back. Just on general principles. It needs to be “cut down to size.”

But  that implies that there is some ideal size of “government” — not to mention that the size is somehow smaller than what we have (on a federal, state, and local level).  There’s no proof put forward for this, or even a target.  It’s  just “Big Government is Too Big,” so let’s  just keep lopping away at the budget until, smaller, it’s not quite so big any more.  We’ll know when to stop … somehow.

Is government “too big”? I don’t know.  I can certainly point out things the government does that I think are unnecessary, or that cost too much, or that are actually harmful.  There are a lot of programs I’d be willing to specifically question and figure out if, in fact, they are worth the money.

But the GOP isn’t interested in specific programs, except for occasional “look at how silly big government is” kinds of things.  They’re just interested in cutting the budget.

Because cutting the budget means lower taxes.

And lower taxes are the real goal.

Everyone wants more money in their pocket, sure. But for the GOP leadership, it seems not a matter of a balancing act between services. They simply want the more money in their pocket (and, of course, the pockets of their wealthy and corporate supporters).

They want to cut the government down to size, not because government is too big, but because they don’t want to pay for what government provides, because, honestly, when you’re well-off, you can (on the surface, at least) avoid needing government spending.  You don’t need a social safety net.  You don’t need rehab programs, or job stimulus, or day care.  You don’t need public schools.  Heck, you might not need police (or at least figure that, with cutbacks, the police will, at least, be protecting your house, if not all those shanties down in the valley, and if they don’t, well, your gated neighborhood can always hire its own security).

Thus, the government needs to be “cut down to size.”

And if there’s a budget deficit, well, then, the last thing you want to consider — or even admit is an option — is raising taxes.  Because the size of government isn’t the real problem for the GOP.  It’s not cutting government down to size.  It’s cutting taxes down to size.  That’s the real goal. “I’ve got mine.  You go pound sand.”

And that’s where we are in this country right now, including Texas.  We’re running large deficits, due to a major economic downturn still being recovered from.  Those deficits aren’t actually causing any significant harm at the moment, but that’s not the debate being heard.  The deficits must be “cut down to size.”

If you’re running out of money at the end of the month, you have three ways to deal with it — rack up larger debt (which might be necessary in the  short term), reduce your spending (do you really need a large caramel macchiatto every morning?), or supplement your income (take a second job, or look for a better paying job).

In reality, people do a combination of these things.  But in the current debate, (a) and (c) are off of the table — we must “tighten our belts” and “cut government down to size.”  Which means cutting government — but, really, means cutting taxes.  Which is why, even with all the deficits, every single one of those GOP governors and congresscritters is also pushing full time for cutting corporate taxes and cutting estate taxes and cutting top tax rates.

The idea of raising taxes is completely out of the conversation, even from the Democrats.

That’s the Procrustean budget process.  We all know that if government is allowed and not restrained, it will stretch its spending to however large the revenue stream is, and beyond.  I don’t think anyone would reasonably argue that government spending is, per se, good, or that not having some checks on it isn’t of value.

But the converse is what’s happening now.  Government spending (as a talking proxy for taxation) is, arbitrarily, being identified as too big.  It needs to be “cut back to size” — and, like Procrustes, the GOP and and wealthy corporate interests that stand to benefit most, have just the solution — keep hacking at limbs until it “fits” their arbitrary size specification.

And because it is arbitrary, no compromise or randomly chosen number will ever be enough.  Offer to cut anything, and you’re told it has to be at least $30 billion in cuts.  Offer to cut $30 billion, and suddenly the demand is $60 billion. And because it’s not a debate about which services need to be cut — it’s not “we need to cut schools to size” or “we need to cut police to size” or “we need to cut care for the poor to size” — the number can changed as desired, with the actual cuts to programs being left as an exercise for the student. (“We need to cut $100 billion — you figure out how.”)

Control the debate, and you control the outcome.  Render all the options except the one you want off limits, and you get the option you want.  You can’t tell Procrustes he should simply get a longer bed for longer guests, because, ultimately, it’s not the aesthetics of the bed that offend, it’s just that he wants to cut.

Procrustes would be proud of the current budget debate, even in Texas.