A message from Lt. Governor Casey Cagle:
Thank you for visiting cutwaste.org. I decided to launch this website as we began the process earlier this summer of slashing spending from the state budget.
Unlike the federal government, Georgia is required to constitutionally balance its budget. This means when the economy slows, we can’t borrow money to avoid cuts like the federal government can. This is a great feature of our state constitution because it forces state elected officials to make hard decisions when tax collections drop in a slow economy.
However, as you might imagine, cutting millions in state spending is never an easy process. Many things we spend money on -- such as prisons, roads, colleges, schools, and law enforcement -- are absolutely critical to public safety and our future, and can’t be cut too deeply. This means we critically need to find specific ways to do more for less with taxpayer dollars.
This may mean finding a more efficient way to perform the basic functions that government must accomplish. Governor Sonny Perdue has done a great job in this area, particularly through his Commission for New Georgia, which uses leading citizens to make government agencies find private-sector style efficiencies to save money.
In other cases, government may simply be wasting funds on programs that have no purpose or on activities that aren’t tied to any useful program at all. This kind of waste should be located, spotlighted, and slashed from the budget as quickly as possible.
What I want to ask you to do is play a role in achieving one or both of these goals. Georgia’s citizens are our best assets for spotlighting government waste at the federal, state, and local level. Please join the fight.
Posted by Lt. Governor Casey Cagle in Uncategorized on 8/25/2008