Spectator guide to state budget debate

If you are a taxpayer like me – or if you simply own a kayak – you may feel a little confused and a bit fearful about the upcoming legislative floor debate on Maine’s vision for the next two years, also know as the “Budget Bill.” With 560 pages and more

numbers than you can count, it is somewhat daunting to the digestion.

Knowing this, State House denizens trying to sell this document to a trusting public (as well as, perhaps, to themselves) have adopted a unique language. Part euphemism, part semantic contortion, part outright fraud, this lexicon will be heard much over the coming days. When you hear these terms and phrases, it is time to put your extra cash in your canoe and stash it in your mattress.

Here follows some insights into State House budget-speak and a few examples of the words to worry about:

“Investment” – Investment in the parlance of the Maine budget is nothing like the investments in your 401(k). When a politician uses the word “investment”, think “spending.” Usually the phrase is used something like this: “This is an investment for our (insert word here).” The word could be “future,” “environment,” “elderly,” “alewives” or whatever cause might arouse public sympathy. More often than not, the word “investment” appears closely with the word “children.” Perhaps there is a subliminal understanding that our children need investments to ease the onus of debt being passed to them in…

“Bonds” – This is a tricky one. In the old days bonds were never in the budget. A “bond” meant someone was going to get a new road, a new sewer system or get rid of a toxic dump somewhere. And the beauty of bonding was that you got to have your say in a public vote to affirm that the borrowing was worthwhile. Not so with these bonds. Bonding in today’s budget debate has morphed in to “revenue bonds” or the more menacing “Governmental Facilities Authority.” When you hear “bond” or “borrowing” in the context of the budget, think of financing schemes that would make Charles Ponzi proud.

“Keeping our promises” – This is a confusing one because it may be hard to know which promises are being kept. Remember, in the budget promises to special interest groups win out over promises made to the general public. During campaign season “keeping promises” means more money in your wallet; during the budget season it means less money in your wallet. Got it?

“Difficult choices” – This is a very popular phrase these days. As you might use the term, it usually means doing less of something – a shortened vacation, squeezing another year from the ’94 pickup, not sending the kids to soccer camp. However, “difficult choices” in budget-speak means only one thing, the choice between cutting back or increasing taxes and fees. As a rule higher taxes and fees always win out.

“Bipartisan cooperation” – This is a term of art indicating the number of Republicans who decide to join the Democrats and raise taxes and fees. The amount of “cooperation” is directly proportional to the number of GOPers who go along. The opposite is “partisan bickering,” a term used against people taking a principled stand against illegal borrowing and excessive taxation.

“Living within our means” – Suffice to say that the state government has a different view of living within in our means. If the past ten years is any indication “living within our means” is apparently somewhere between Bill Gates and Buckingham Palace. During that decade Total State Revenue has grown by 74 percent, or $2.5 billion. See “difficult choices” for more detail.

“Paying their fair share” – This phrase will pop up in the darnedest places, but it is always used in justification for nicking someone’s hard-earned pay with some “user fee” or “sin tax.” Applied indiscriminately to smokers, beer drinkers, back-country canoeists, and seniors in assisted living facilities (heaven protect you if you are all four!) and the like, this term means that unsuspecting you are causing some state expenditure that would not be incurred if it weren’t for your decadent, costly impositions on society. Certainly, you don’t object to paying your fair share. Well, do you?

“Historic” – This has become the most overused word of the decade. Again, this can be confusing for those of us who look to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall or the end of World War II as historic. “Historic” in budget terms refers to a periodicity somewhere between vacuuming out your car and your local school calling a snow day.

So now that you understand the terminology, as the budget battle heats up this week you can settle in and follow the debate. Feel better?

Richard A. Bennett is a former president of the Maine Senate and currently serves on the board of the Maine Heritage Policy Center. A corporate governance consultant, he lives in Norway with his wife and two children.