“Oceania Has Always Had A Higher Budget Than Eastasia, Winston”

After almost a year of listening to the DFL chide the GOP for “borrowing” money from the schools (actually just delaying some of the payments from one budget year to the next (notwithstanding the fact that Mark Dayton’s “budget” proposed an even bigger “loan”, naturally), the DFL is now proposing continuing the “delay” to refill the budget reserve.

Well, not “the DFL”, per se, but the Strib editorial board.  But that’s a distinction without a difference; the editorial board serves as the DFL’s trial balloon launcher.

And launch they do:

Budget reserves don’t get a lot of love at the State Capitol.

Throngs don’t congregate to shout “Don’t raid our reserves!” Lobbyists don’t line the corridors plotting strategies to plump up reserves or shield them from attack.

It’s a pity that they don’t. Adequate reserves are the taxpayers’ insurance policy.

“Insurance policy”…against what?

Hard times?

Like the ones we’ve been in for a few years now?

They guard against disruptive cuts and/or tax increases when an ill-timed financial calamity strikes.

For a family budget – for people who earn their money – a budget reserve makes ample sense, and is a priority.

For a state?  Keeping a billion dollar reserve – that’s $200 for every man, woman and child in the state of Minnesota – is yet another case of the Strib editorial board DFL saying “Tough times schmough times; keeping government running comes first; bend over, it’s tax day!”

The best “budget reserve” for government is to spend not only less than its means – its revenues – but much less.  Let revenue drop to where the budget is when things turn dodgy.  That means the next time times turn good, do not treat the new revenue as a sign that it’s time to have more permanent spending…

…which is exactly what the faux Republicans like Arne Carlson, stealth DFLers like Jesse Ventura, and of course the Strib Editorial Board DFL do.

Reserves are necessities for a family.  They’re a luxury for government – something to plump up only when revenues are increasing so fast that even a DFL legislature can’t try to spend it fast enough.