Expanding upon spending cuts and the poor

I recently posted on the topic of whether spending cuts necessarily harm the poor. I felt that the subject was sufficiently important to write about in a full-length article that recently ran in the Las Cruces Sun-News.

While government is always touted as a means for lifting the poor and disadvantaged out of poverty, the fact is that President Clinton’s last budget was $1.9 trillion back in 2001. President Obama’s 2011 budget was double that at $3.8 trillion. Is there anyone who thinks the poor in this country (or anyone else, for that matter) are better off today than they were when the budget was half as big?

And, while New Mexico’s budget hasn’t grown like Washington’s has, we are spending more than ever on education and Medicaid. But are we getting any more for our money? The things that have improved most over the last decade involve technology and were accomplished by the free market, not government diktats. Shrinking the government will help the poor.