(Chuck Muth) – A story in yesterday’s Las Vegas Sun describes how proposed budget cuts would eliminate home care for 6,500 disabled Nevadans.
“We need to cut spending,” said Ben Kieckhefer, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services and Republican candidate for the Nevada state Senate. “The only way to do that is reducing programs.”
No it isn’t.
You reduce salaries.
Reducing salaries doesn’t eliminate programs. It just pays the government employees less money to provide the same programs and services currently being provided.
Sure, the employees won’t like it. Some might even quit. Fine. Good luck finding a job in this market – especially one with the kinds of benefits our public servants enjoy.
And I’m sure that for every government employee who quits, there will be a hundred or more lined up to take their place. After all, Nevada – and especially Las Vegas – lead the nation in unemployment.
That said, why are we eliminating home care for disabled Nevadans while we still fund useless, non-essential programs such as the Equal Rights Commission and emergency road service that should be paid for by individual vehicle owners using their AAA card?
I’ll tell you why.
Because the Equal Rights Commission is being protected by Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford (it’s a black thing) and because killing off tow truck services won’t create anywhere near the level of heart-tugging, gnashing of teeth necessary to sell the notion that taxes need to be raised as stories about cutting off diaper changes for old people.
It’s the same reason why the first thing they do in Washington, DC, when there’s a budget fight is shut down the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian museums. Not because they have to; but because that’s what they choose to do because they know it will get the most ink and will generate the most public outrage.
It’s cynical. It’s dishonest.
And it works.
Unless people stop falling for it.
