Matt Bevin's "Responsible"(sic) Budget Will Kill Us All

Because running government like a business always fails.  It fails for the same reason that trying to grow vegetables in a vat of herbicide fails: mutually exclusive goals.

The goal of every business is to make a profit at the expense of customers.  The goal of government is to provide public services that enrich the community, even at the expense of business.

Because a government that seeks to turn a profit - for itself or for its corporate cronies - can not perform its responsibilities as the public's protector.

Private profit is anathema to the public good. Corporatization and privatization are as lethal to good government as altruism and sacrifice are to private enterprise.  The two can survive and exist in proximity to each other, but never as part of the other.

Markets are out to make money, regardless of the consequences.  Governments exist to rein in those markets when they threaten to harm the public.

And Matt Bevin is out to bankrupt the Commonwealth with his "market" schemes.

From the Courier:

Gov. Matt Bevin told a crowd of hundreds of Kentucky business leaders Thursday that he will bring pro-business principles to the state and propose an “honest and responsible” budget this month.

Bevin, who spoke at the annual Kentucky Chamber Day dinner, said he already has received requests that would add between $1.4 billion and $2.1 billion in spending to the upcoming budget, which state lawmakers will adopt in 2016.

“News flash, that’s not coming. It’s not – we don’t have it,” Bevin said. “Truth be told, I wish we did. We don’t have it. So there will be changes. We will be more austere because we must get our financial house in order.”

Ah, austerity.  The economic fantasy that the cure for hunger is starvation.  Austerity is what has left Greece prostate and unable to support itself.  Austerity is what nearly killed the U.S. economy until President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus and auto industry rescue injected money back into the starving economy and put it back on its feet.

You want to kill an economy, austerity will do it every time.