Can't Everyone Be a Winner in the Budget?

Today I was talking with a friend of mine who recently sat down with several state legislators to discuss Governor Synder's proposed budget cuts. He was there representing teachers, and argued that teachers should not be having their funding cut. Also there was the head of a local movie company who was arguing against cuts to subsidies for movies studios, and there was a retiree there arguing against taxing retirees, and there was a police officer there arguing against cuts to police, and there was a local government official there arguing against cuts to local government funding. According to my friend, they all supported one another and backed one another up as they badgered the legislators who talked with them to make no cuts to any of them.

Now, in Michigan the budget has to be cut- there isn't revenue to match expenditures at the state level and the state of Michigan has to have a balanced budget, and our current Governor doesn't have the advantage of getting federal bailouts or tobacco settlements and isn't willing to paper over the debt with creative accounting measures or push it to future years. So I pointed out to my friend that someone has to be the 'loser' in this budget- not everyone can be a 'winner'.

He disagreed with me, but not really- as a good solid liberal, he explained the way that unions, teachers, green companies, movie stars, police, retirees, and librarians can 'win' this budget battle- by making everyone else be a loser. Like most liberals, the secret is to tax and tax and tax some more, and direct those taxes to those groups in our society who have the luxury of being able to have or make money- under his plan (which fits with what the liberal Governor we had previously did), taxes would be raised on young workers, small businesses, 'unfavorable' businesses, the rich, the wealthy, those who invest, and those who are productive. By extracting more wealth from these groups, he argued, everyone in society would win, except for those who lost, but they don't count to him because they are all bad people.

You see, the beauty of a budget is that it forces you to make choices and decide where you stand on issues- what groups or services or powers or abilities government should have and which ones it should not have or do. At the federal level, our national government wanders around spending more and more money and never figures out its place in society because it does not make and keep a balanced budget, but at the state level, our budget will produce winners and losers, and we can't all be winners.

Someone has to lose in this budget. Myself, I think teachers can take a small loss, but not on the level that Synder is pitching, and I think that other groups should be big losers (like movie studies, government employees, and other companies that get tax credits because of their political connections). Winners should be wealth generators, because when they are free to generate wealth and be wealthy, all of society will benefit from the surplus of life, liberty, and property that they generate freed from the bounds of government control and taxes.