August 19, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:Silly Lead of the Day
From David Ignatius:
INDIANAPOLIS -- When all 50 state governors agree on something, that's a powerful message. Especially when it's a cry for help in dealing with what many governors say is a national fiscal crisis -- invisible at the federal level but ravaging state government.
If there is one topic where it has not ever been difficult to get agreement from governors -- Democrat or Republican, Black or White, Great Taste or Less Filling -- it is on getting Washington to give the states money.
Yet when fifty governors are agreed, the move is transparently stupid. Where is all the money going to come from to give the governors? Why, from the taxpayers in those same fifty states (one presumes, since Ignatius spends quite a lot of time excoriating Bush for running a deficit). This is a plea to save the governors from the political pain of having to raise taxes or cut spending, not the high-minded bipartisan altruistic festival of civic virtue that Ignatius seems to imagine.