Guess what? The City of Houston needs to trim approximately $130 million from the next fiscal year budget. That budget will be adopted by Council sometime in June and the Fiscal Year begins on July 1.

The Mayor is trying her best to keep informing everyone that these dollars need to be found in the budget and to avoid tax increases.

It’s the same song, different verse, as the federal and state budgets. The downturn in the economy is hitting home.

Welcome to the game. Many Americans immediately experienced the downturn in 2008 and 2009.
One of the discussion points that fascinates me is comparing government budgets to family/household budgets. Governor Perry does this frequently. He says that the State just has to act like the citizens and live within our means.

Here’s the thing about though – a family will sit down and establish their priorities. They will trim the extras out of their budget – cut back on dining, cable, postpone repairs, etc. But they can also decide what they are willing to fight for and struggle to keep it. They can increase their revenues. If a family member is laid off or loses their job, the family will immediately make adjustments. A family member may go to work in a job far below their skill set to bring in additional income. They have the potential to increase revenue to keep their house and food on the table. “No jobs out there” usually refers to “not the job I want”.

Government cannot easily increase their revenues. We the voters have screamed “enough” and told them to live with what they have! Our attitude is that they “already take too much.” We will not re-elect people who vote for tax increases.

O.k. Just like the family, we have to decide what we are willing to live without. We’ll close libraries, public swimming pools, cut back on building new roads, trim public education, lay-off public employees and more.
It’s our choice. We can support these decisions. What we cannot do is claim that we want our cake and to eat it, too. We can’t cut back on our own spending, thus lowering tax revenues, while demanding that things remain the same.

Maybe the Governor is right. We are more like a family having a heated discussion. Voters have made it clear that new taxes or increases are unacceptable and if you vote for them, you will pay the consequences. Now, we have to accept less service in return.

We need to join our leaders in helping them decide what these “households” (federal, state and city) are willing to give up to keep us within budget.