This article was written by Cindi Scoppe for the state news website thestate.com. She wrote this article in response to the controversial budget cuts that the state is making in this troubling economic time. She is explaining all the questions that the government is having to face right now, and trying to make it easier for the reader to understand what it is that is really being fought over.
What Ms. Scoppe is trying to explain to the readers of this article is that it is easy for us to try and compare the huge budget shortfalls to our own economic trials, but in the end the government faces decisions that effect far more people in many different ways. The difficulty for the state legislature is to decide what programs are going to get cut or reduced and which of these programs need the money to keep at least some of the economy running. She says in the article that the state government doesn't have a choice to run a deficit, they have to make everything balance and that requires some tightening of the belt. It is not easy for them to decide which programs will get cut and which will not because either way it will have some kind of negative effect on the state economy which can lead to even more cuts next year. Thus, the government has a hard job in deciding what to do, and where the little bit of money they do have is going to go, and this cannot all be decided by doing what a family or business does in their economically difficult times.
David Duryee
