Trying to thread the budget needle and sew up re-election

Governor Ritter's plans to balance the state budget solely through cuts to services is starting to draw some heat. There is a steady drumbeat of protest coming out of Grand Junction where the Regional Center which serves the developmentally disabled will be completely shuttered. The public heat has risen to the point that the governor's office has been offering assurances that the closing will not occur until every patient has been placed. Here's a story from the Grand Junction Sentinel on Monday,

Gov. Bill Ritter’s deadline to close the skilled-nursing facility at the Grand Junction Regional Center still holds, but there is “some flexibility,” his spokesman said.

“If there are those who need more time, then they will have more time,” Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said. “The governor is very committed to that.”

Opponents of closing the 32-bed facility said Monday that officials in the state Department of Human Services told them Sunday the deadline for closure had been extended.

The February closure deadline still holds, Dreyer said.

That’s substantially what families, guardians and employees were told by the governor, said Dennis Brady, whose son, Tyler, is a client there.

“They just said the unit would not be closed until the last person is moved,” Brady said.

Meanwhile the governor's plan to expedite the parole of thousands of inmates in order to cut costs in the Department of Corrections is drawing a lot of heat as well. The Denver Post editorial board attacked the plan yesterday,

It turns out that 478 of those to be considered for release in the first year of the program are violent offenders, according to a report by the Post's Kirk Mitchell. Twenty have been convicted of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, 88 are robbers, 14 are kidnappers and another 14 are abusers who seriously injured children.

Ritter's program seeks to trim $19 million from the $318 million deficit in this year's budget by targeting only prisoners eligible for parole who would have been released anyway within six months. The two-year pilot program would also save about $20 million next year.

The governor is obviously in a very difficult position - the budget must be balanced. From my perspective here were two ways to go about doing this. The first option would have been to make very deep cuts in corrections and human services knowing that these departments have a high public profile and that such cuts would be controversial. After making the cuts the governor could then use the platform created by the public outcry to direct the conversation to one about our revenue constraints which make it impossible to provide essential state services. The conversation becomes one about those essential services and forces the issue of revenue to the forefront. Those cuts would illustrate very clearly the critical services that the state provides and that it's time to for the citizens of Colorado to decide just what kind of state they want to live in. Do they want a state where the most vulnerable amongst us have a place to live and proper medical care? Do they want a state where their streets are safe from violent criminals? Or do they prefer to continue under the same fiscal regime we currently reside under? The upside here is that the conversation is not about Ritter's management but instead about our confused and conflicted state constitution and the vision for our state. The downside is that no governor would ordinarily want to discuss new revenues going into an election year.

The second option is less aggressive. It would call for "surgical" cuts to state services. It would avoid any discussion of revenue increases, focus solely on cuts and hope that the cuts could be applied in a way that would offend the least amount of people and draw the least amount of public attention. The upside is that revenue discussions, ie. taxes, don't raise the ire of conservatives. The downside is that the conversation about the need for fiscal reform is put off for another year and that the governor's base is depressed at a time when conservatives are already in a frenzy because of national political issues.

Option one means fighting for your convictions and hoping that such action motivates your base and convinces independents that you have a plan and a vision. Option two means hunkering down, walking a tight rope and hoping that you can hold on just long enough to win re-election. I'm not naive enough to think that option one is without risk. I believe though that the key calculation for the governor is as follows - what is his position in the eyes of the electorate today and what is it likely to be a year from now? If you believe that your position is at least moderately strong and likely to stay that way you take option two.

My concern is that conservatives will be motivated next year to work against any Democrat, that the Democratic base will have a natural let down after the big fights in 2006 and 2008. That a relatively ineffectual first term has independents unsure of the governor's leadership ability and that the economy will still be mired in a job-less "recovery" next summer. If my concerns prove true then I fear that the current milquetoast strategy will lead to an electoral drubbing. I hope very much that I am wrong but the continued passiveness of the governor is alarming.