OPINION: Nebraska needs Republicans who will make government work

There’s an old saying: You cannot spend your way to prosperity. But you cannot cut your way to prosperity either. And Nebraska is learning that lesson the hard way.
Gov. Jim Pillen came into office with a record surplus, and now we are facing a budget shortfall approaching $1 billion, according to the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board. It’s the result of the governor’s overspending and failure to properly budget and manage the state’s finances.
He has a “my way or the highway” approach to governing that dovetails neatly into his desire to return the Republican Party to being the party of austerity, the party of tax cuts for multinational corporations, the party that attacks and wants to cut Social Security.
Government is not a business; it exists for the common good. But saying otherwise doesn’t justify an overly simplistic tool like an across-the-board 5% cut to state spending, as Governor Pillen has done.
Nebraska is facing a slow-motion repeat of Kansas’ disastrous 2012 tax-cut experiment. Kansas slashed corporate and income taxes on the promise that economic growth would make up the difference. It didn’t. The result was years of crippling deficits, spending cuts and eventually a reversal of much of the tax-cut package.
Our state is already on that path. We handed out massive tax breaks and incentives without building the production, investment and economic growth needed to replace the revenue. Now we’re staring down massive deficits and responding with across-the-board cuts.
If Pillen ran his business the way he has run Nebraska, he would have gone bankrupt years ago.
And that gets to a larger problem with the Republican Party. We have spent too much time arguing about whether government should be bigger or smaller and not enough time asking whether it actually works. Tax cuts and spending cuts became virtues in themselves. But neither tells us whether we are making our country stronger, safer and more prosperous.
That’s what helped create the political environment that produced Donald Trump.
Too many voters heard Republicans talk about tax cuts that seemed to benefit multinational corporations and wealthy interests while telling ordinary Americans that government could not protect their jobs, communities or the programs they had spent their lives paying into. They heard politicians talk about reducing Social Security rather than protecting it for the people who earned it.
Then the 2016 presidential election happened and the political status quo broke.
Voters wanted a government that would fight for them. They wanted safer communities, secure borders, protected American industries and leaders willing to challenge powerful corporations and entrenched interests.
It was a rejection of a version of conservatism that had stopped speaking to its political base.
Nebraska Republicans should learn that lesson rather than trying to reverse it. But that cannot become an excuse to return to the politics that made the GOP irrelevant and doomed until President Trump came along.
We should reject the false choice between bloated government and no government.
The goal should be strong government that understands its responsibilities and performs them exceptionally well. Government should keep communities safe, enforce the law, maintain infrastructure, provide essential services and protect taxpayers from fraud and abuse.
A 5% cut to every agency may reduce spending, but it does not tell us whether the right things were cut. A balanced budget does not prove government is working. A Triple-A credit rating does not tell a Nebraska family whether their community is safer or whether they are receiving value for their taxes.
We need a right-wing party willing to challenge corporate welfare as aggressively as it challenges government waste. It should lower taxes on working families and Nebraska businesses while refusing special favors for politically connected interests. It should believe in law and order while demanding that government actually deliver safe communities.
Most importantly, Republicans should stop being afraid to say that government has legitimate responsibilities.
The answer to bad government is not necessarily less government. Sometimes the answer is better government. The answer to waste is not an arbitrary percentage cut. It is accountability. Government should do what government is supposed to do and do it exceptionally well.
We do not need Republicans who simply promise to make government smaller. Our state needs Republicans who will make government work. That is the Republican future I believe in.