View Point

Friday, July 3, 1998

Cayetano is fibbing
about state budget, jobs

State hasn't really turned back
the clock to 1993 spending levels

By Galen Fox

GOVERNOR Cayetano is playing games with our state budget. He is telling the press we have the lowest budget "since 1993." All of us involved in the budget process know the facts are otherwise.

Cayetano doesn't want to cut the budget in an election year. So he tried to raise the general excise tax to pay for a tax cut.

When that didn't work, he pronounced himself satisfied with a budget that cut just $52 million from last year's $5.78 billion operating budget -- less than 1 percent. The cut is too small to help our crippled economy.

Cayetano should be honest about want-ing a big budget; he currently believes in big government.

So why does his press release say the budget is back to "1993" levels? In 1993, the operating budget was $5.35 billion, $400 million less than today. The state's operating budget is less than 1 percent below last year's all-time high.

It's the second biggest budget that Hawaii has ever had.

Cayetano similarly is playing games with his comments on state government employment. In 1995, he cut the full-time equivalent work force of state government by 2,880 positions. Over 600 jobs were "warm bodies." Cutting those "warm bodies" made the state work force very unhappy with Cayetano.

Now, things are different. Cayetano presides over a government larger by 500 positions than it was in 1995.

So why does he instead say that he is "cutting" positions? Is Cayetano trying to fool the public? Does he think he can get away with saying a big budget is small, and a larger work force is smaller?

Cayetano acts like he believes in big budgets. The latest proof comes from his recommendation that the Department of Education "restore" $11 million for education.

We can't "restore" money beyond our budget, even to fund classroom instruction, which is not the focus of Cayetano's spending.

Cayetano is asking the DOE to spend $11 million that the DOE doesn't have -- an unconstitutional act -- and expecting next year's Legislature to appropriate $11 million in currently unavailable emergency funds to make up the deficit.

Imagine spending education money that doesn't exist. Cayetano is truly into big budgets, into buying elections through public spending, and into irresponsible fiscal actions, spending money we may not have next year.

We need to reduce the size of big government to help our small families, smaller because so many relatives now live on the mainland.

If we have smaller government, we will have bigger paychecks for our workers, including for government workers' unfunded contracts. And bigger paychecks mean more jobs for all of us.

Does Cayetano understand we have to change? Are we going to tell him the days of big government are over?

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State Rep. Galen Fox serves on the House Finance Committee.
The opinions in View Point columns are the authors' and are
not necessarily shared by the Star-Bulletin.