A Smaller Increase is Not a Cut

One of my pet peeves (and I have many) is the continual misuse of the word "cuts" when it comes to government budgets. If your boss "promised" you a raise of 4% and you ended up getting a 3.75% raise, was your pay "cut"? According to most media reporting, it was. Of course LOGICALLY, there was no "cut." In fact you got a RAISE.

In my local paper today, the headline read "Property tax cut would SLICE school budget." There are two problems here. The first is that property taxes were not "cut" if you factor in appreciation. In fact, most home owners will still see their property tax bill INCREASE next year, but not as fast as it would have without a reduction in the RATE. The bigger problem (for me) is that the word "slice" implies a CUT in a budget (schools in this case.) In fact, our school budget will still INCREASE by 5% as opposed to the PROPOSED 6%. The so-called "cut" in the proposed budget will be about 11 million dollars, so the school budget will INCREASE by "only" 35 million as opposed to 45 Million. (in real dollars, from $671 million to $706 million.) So again, say you were promised a $10 raise and you only got $9.99. Was that a pay cut?

I understand the motive here. If you believe that the bigger the government the better, and that government is the salvation rather than the problem, then any decrease in its rate of growth and scope, is a bad thing. I pray for a day when some government budget will ACTUALLY be cut. By that I mean that some agency would have LESS of my money to spend next year than it did this year.

Don't hold your breath. It's not complicated.