Issue Position: Budget

Issue Position

We have all had to make our hard earned money stretch a little further in recent years. Yet our current state leadership recently decided to extract an extra $2.1 billion dollars per year from our already shrinking pocket books. It only makes sense that as citizens need to adjust their priorities when times are lean, the government should do the same. Incidentally, though our state budget has increased by over 10% a year, our spending on K-12 education has decreased from 27.3% of the budget to 25.2% of the state budget. Assistance benefit and social programs are the fastest growing portion of our state budget and now the largest expense. This area is growing at a rate that we cannot sustain and is putting a heavy strain on our state finances.
The good news is that we can turn this around by growing jobs which grows the economy which reduces the need for assistance thereby reducing the need for increased state funding. This is a true win-win scenario!

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