They Forgot a Revenue Message!

This week parents with toddlers protested planned cuts in services, fee hikes at the State House. Last week the Environmental League of Massachusetts released a report that highlights the deep environmental spending cuts that have taken place in Massachusetts. While in the Environmental League of Massachusetts report environmental officials said that they understand that the current state fiscal crisis has forced spending cuts, both advocacy organizations evaded the tough question that legislators are facing today: cut these programs further, take money away from other programs to fund them or raise new revenues.  

“A healthy environment is the result of decisions we make together through our government through different policies, initiatives and decisions that keep our water clean and protect our green spaces.”

“Young children thrive when we support policies that create a network of support to help their families overcome their childrens’ health challenges.”

While everyone would agree with the above statements and would support funding these government initiatives, we cannot lose sight of the fact that there are many other worthy programs in our state that also contribute to the overall health of our community. In fact the State House corridors are packed everyday with hundred of single issue advocates lobbying for their worthy programs to be protected from cuts.

The public debate about these programs should not based on whether a program is more important than another one or which one is getting cut the most but on how we all as a community decide how to support all these structures by providing them with the necessary funding to keep them functioning and servicing our communities.

In good economic times we have cut taxes in the state to bring money back into “people’s pockets”. In bad economic times, we cut taxes to “re-active the economy and create jobs”. We can not have it both ways and expect to have the same level of services and programs.

We need to continue our one issue advocacy but add a revenue message to protect the entire range of important programs that we value in our communities.