There’s a lot to say about the Governor’s budget ideas. Between his recent budget address and his previous State of the State, here’s the quick wrap:

• Same old, same old.
• No tax hikes ever – except for the tax hikes I’m going to foist on the middle class by going after income sensitivity on property tax and dumping our burdens onto local towns. But don’t say that I’m dumping any taxes onto local towns, cause then I’ll tell you that I’m not.
• And middle class tax hikes aren’t tax hikes, because its really getting rid of an “entitlement.” Yep, that’s what he called in the State of the State. Here’s a Republican telling middle class voters that their paychecks are an entitlement. Weird, yes. But don’t expect any objections from the Republican faithful. He’s their guy.
• No more spending, unless its, say, another $15 million for businesses without any transparency or accountability. Hey, they’re entitled.
• Business needs more money. Sick people and anyone needing social services should just suck it up.

All of this should be discussed in detail. And we will (I hope). But I want to, for the moment, highlight one line from the most recent address:

To protect the most vulnerable now and in the future, we must make sustainable reductions to break free from the dangerous cycle of managing deficits year on end.

Bullshit. This is Republican malarkey, feebly camouflaged in lefty feelgood rhetoric. And the press refuses to call him on it. As a result, it’s gradually becoming the accepted wisdom. It doesn’t even take any great thinking to call this idea out. Simply one question: Why?

Make no mistake, this is the same line of attack the national GOP uses against Social Security. Projections decades out show it’s gonna have problems, so therefore we have to gut it. That’s illogical, anti-intellectual crap. We have a legislature. They work with the executive on a budget. They meet every year. They have a budget every year. If the numbers don’t add up, they make them add up. That’s how it works.

Think ahead? Sure. Of course. But just because we may have to make a cut next year is no reason to make it this year. No budget can be guaranteed to be extended, as is, in perpetuity. That’s precisely why a new budget is made every year. This dimwitted business of ohhh, next year looks bad – so we better throw poor, unemployed, and sick people overboard right now would be just plain dumb, if not for the fact that the press and many Democrats let him get away with it. How dumb can it be if it works?

And what does it work for? It works as an excuse to dismantle the programs that protect the most vulnerable. It works to destroy the state’s responsibility to protect those basic human rights that the right refuses to recognize as basic human rights.

The legislature should work to make the best possible government this year. When there are problems next year they can work with all those problems next year – not just the anticipated problems, but the unanticipated ones. As well as any unanticipated good news.

Because that’s how our system is supposed to work, regardless of whether or not it serves the right’s ideological goals.