Hell Hath No Fury Like a Budget Item Shorn

How heartless Republican fiscal policy is quickly making enemies

Jan 01, 2025

In a public meeting in a small southern town, the City Council put their Department of Parks and Recreation on blast for not doing enough for residents. They complained about youth not having dependable support systems, things to do to keep them out of crime, and quality, caring athletic programs to help them learn life lessons. Councilmen (and yes, they were all men) reminisced about supervised playground programs they participated in as children.

Why, they asked, was the Parks Department not able to do these simple things to show up for the community?

I stood there taking this criticism in silent fury. Our Parks budget had been consistently cut, at times drastically so, every year for the last 20 years, and we were working on a shoestring budget.

Meanwhile, those who controlled the budget, Council and City Manager threw money at Economic Development, undercut park programming with their own pet projects, and approved dependable and significant pay raises for themselves. They were so hidden by the convoluted budget process that they got away with it.

Members of the community followed suit with their council’s questioning. They demanded answers for why their parks weren’t updated and maintained better. They complained about a lack of programs, accessibility of programs, and not knowing about programs. They believed that Parks employees were just not getting it, not seeing the potential of Parks and Recreation to transform a city.

This town was unique with its history, personalities, and politics, but their brazen defunding of vital community resources is all too ordinary. The pattern of speaking to the need for services that provide life-altering support to citizens, while simultaneously cutting their funding is common across the board.

The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) conducted a poll in 2017 of elected and appointed local public officials across the United States. Though these leaders overwhelmingly believed in the value of parks and recreation, they listed their budget as the first to be cut in economic downturns. NRPA’s polling data matched with statistics from another study that examined national trends in city budgets during the Great Recession. Researchers found that parks and recreation services were cut the most drastically of any other public service over the course of several years. Incidentally, earlier this year, the House cut vital funding for National Parks without blinking an eye.

From Congress to city councils to school boards, there seems to be a belief that parks, libraries, schools, and social services are excessive spending.

Despite being credited with a lot of responsibility for supporting people and communities, they are deemed unessential. Maybe these institutions that knit our social fabric together don’t need money, because they’ve got heart. Maybe they need less because people who run them are altruistic and don’t demand high salaries. Maybe they shouldn’t be run by the government at all, they should instead be taken on by private philanthropic citizens.

I fiercely disagree with the logic, but I’ve heard these different arguments.

When I watched Congress’s budget debacle last month, I knew social programs and common resources would be on the chopping block. And I assumed it would be accepted.

As much as I expect this pattern, words can’t express how much I loathe it.

Seeing Elon and Ramaswamy petition for federal budget cuts of what they see as wasteful was like watching a honey badger in a hen house, just killing for the fun of it. They cut firefighter health benefits. They cut consumer protections. They cut kids’ cancer research. And they did it with a laughing emoji.

In the revised bill that Elon celebrated, resources for vulnerable people were cut, taxes were reduced for the wealthy, and spending increased.

Republicans are again banking on the belief that their false narratives will hold strong. They continue to ride on the ideas that trickle down economics equate with fiscal responsibility and that providing support for citizens through social programs is wasteful. They talk circles, twist words, and trust that the dizzying effect will cover up the sheer ridiculousness of their argument.

I wonder if this time Republicans are testing their luck just a bit too much.

People with the loudest voices and the biggest influence are not only trying to disinvest in programs that seem like bipartisan no-brainers, they are also clearly saying that they aren’t worthwhile. That they are valueless. Things like parks and pediatric cancer research are tossed aside so callously that humanity can’t even be paid the lip service that politicians typically depend on. That diversion which often distracts from heartless budget cuts is missing.

So far, it seems like that degree of sociopathy is not being widely accepted, even within the Republican Party. It seems like there is a line of social welfare that is repulsive to cut, and the billionaires in charge are so out of touch, they can’t read where it is. In fact, it seems that they are so oblivious and unlikeable that they may actually end up showcasing the need for a kind of government that funds more programs to support the working class. The need for a nation with fewer self-assured, capitalist monstrosities.

The key is in how the electorate, how citizens like us, how those cast aside in political negotiations, respond to and bring attention to their brazen acts of interference. Speaking from experience, when you’ve bent over backward to meet the demands of a budget process, and then your request is blatantly ignored, you’re angry. You don’t have any desire or incentive to play by the rules, and you certainly don’t have loyalty to those in charge of the process.

Trump is making new enemies quickly, and some of those who have stood by him before might be questioning their allegiance.

My hope for the upcoming year is that we use outrage from this and all of Trump’s upcoming grifts to call out the system that enables him. To collectively rail against the values that are tied to small government and free market. To irrecoverably rebrand government-supported capitalism as repulsive corruption that no one wants to come near. And to bring down MAGA.

Let’s use the passion of those of us who have been scorned to stand up for the people and places we cherish, and demand a better way forward.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

Let’s make our voices heard. We want revived support of the social programs that are on the chopping block, those that are assumed to be as good as gone. I encourage you to join groups that advocate for any and all of the causes that Trump and his ilk are pushing to get rid of. And please share your efforts here so that more people can join!

Parks People

Discussion about this post