State must rebuild services before cutting any taxes

WHEN THE RECESSION plunged the state budget into the red, we didn’t raise taxes; we cut government programs, hoping we could hold our breath until the economy rebounded. In the process, we almost certainly eliminated some waste and unnecessary spending. But we also cut vital services and caused damage that must be repaired once we can afford to.

Thanks to those hold-our-breath cuts, we can’t pay for all of the homework centers and teacher specialists and summer school programs we promised to provide failing schools, so students would have a shot at a good education no matter where they live. We aren’t even giving schools the amount of money we decided was absolutely necessary just to keep them running, back before we came up with a system for targeting the schools that most needed help.

We can’t hire half as many guards as other states do to make sure the people we send to prison don’t attack each other, riot, take workers hostage and even escape into our communities.

We can’t put enough troopers on the interstates to make drivers afraid of getting pulled over for driving 10, 15, 20 miles over the speed limit; and so they do that, making our already deadly highways even more dangerous. Troopers don’t have time even to go near secondary roads unless they’re responding to a wreck they weren’t able to deter through routine patrols.

We can’t afford to keep the dangerously mentally ill off the streets and out of the hospital emergency rooms, where the cost of their care is passed on to the rest of us in higher insurance costs and longer waits. And there’s a question as to whether we can maintain our already inadequate level of spending for Medicaid, which serves to keep poor people out of those emergency rooms that the rest of us subsidize.

And the list goes on.

Even if you rule out tax hikes, you’d think that, with a mess like this, our state’s leaders would at least be committed to making the repairs to these vital programs once times get better.

But that’s not their plan. Last week, Gov. Mark Sanford and three-quarters of the members of the House responded to our deep and lingering financial crisis by rallying around a plan to cut taxes.

They don’t plan to make the bulk of the cuts until tax revenues start growing enough to absorb them (although they do plan to take a first cut next year, regardless of how much money we have). But they’re not waiting until we actually repair the damage to essential services — just until we stop having to cut more.

There is nothing inherently wrong with reducing the income tax rate — as a part of a comprehensive overhaul of our tax code; it may be a good idea. And there is nothing inherently wrong with deciding to use future revenue growth to lower taxes — if you are already providing an adequate level of services.

But to do so when services have been butchered — and to pretend that less than 1 percent annual growth will be enough to maintain current programs as the population grows and inflation kicks in and to make the repairs — is unconscionable. At least previous tax cuts came when times were good, when our schools and police and prisons and health programs hadn’t gone through four years of hemorrhaging. Under the circumstances, this is one of the most irresponsible proposals we have ever seen from the leaders of our state. They should be ashamed. And they should abandon this reckless plan immediately.