It's back - the old Washington Monument ploy!
In the old days when Congress put pressure on the Washington bureaucracy to cut spending, the response was predictable. Among the first warnings from the bureaucrats was that they'd have to close down the Washington Monument.
That, of course would be unacceptable - as would most of the other cut-backs in services projected to make the reductions in expenditures possible.
So we hear it now at the state level. Governor Perdue, as she must, is telling state agencies to come up with cuts in their budgets.
Like clockwork, the public hears warnings that this could mean not using prisoners on work gangs, eliminating chaplains positions, closing libraries, not filling in potholes, muddier streams, closing rape crisis centers...
The list of unacceptable "alternatives" goes on and on.
The purpose is all too transparent - to get the public up in arms in opposition to the cuts.
Bev Perdue is in her first term as governor. But this isn't her first trip to Raleigh. She can recognize a ploy when she sees one. Run 'em back to their drawing boards, Guv!
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