Strategic Cuts to the Budget are One Thing. This is Not That.

A lot has been said this week about the stopgap spending bill that Congress passed last Friday, when it was yet again on the precipice of shutting down the government. Democratic members of the U.S. House voted in lockstep against it, while in the Senate, a few key members of the Democratic caucus voted yes — keeping the government running until the fall. Much has also been said about those Democrats who voted yes, in what was certainly a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type of scenario. Shutting down the government would have empowered our already overly powerful executive branch to exert even more power. Keeping it open means that the same executive’s plans for the government can move forward.

Wherever you stand on the budget passage, it’s instructive to keep an eye on the shift in spending priorities and how they reverberate here in Central Oregon.

Here are a few of the items that just got cut out of the budget passed by Congress, that directly affect us:

$2 million in funding for CORE3, the proposed coordination center for Central and Eastern Oregon, which will be the local and state emergency response center for the state should there be a natural disaster like the Cascadia earthquake
$3.5 million for improvements to OR126 in east Redmond between Oasis Village and town
$1.25 million to purchase the land where Bend’s outdoor tiny home shelter currently sits
$2.25 million for a wastewater collection system in Terrebonne
$1.7 million for Oregon’s Court Appointed Special Advocates network, which supports children in foster care

These cuts will have real impacts. In the case of the CORE3 center, lawmakers assured residents at this weekend’s town hall that the center will be built. But at the same meeting, they acknowledged that a significant portion of this year’s legislative session is going to be spent addressing budget shortfalls from the federal government.

Unfortunately, rollout of these changes from the current administration is so chaotic and mercurial in their execution that leaders at the state and local level cannot prepare. Many people support cuts to government spending — especially those at the federal level — but those cuts need to be strategic. If they’re not methodically instituted, then the local nonprofits, businesses and governments affected — like those mentioned above — are unable to plan for the shortcomings without massive interruptions in services. In the case of the legislature, it means that lawmakers must now spend more time adjusting budgets and less time on the business of amending or making laws. That makes for less efficient government overall.

Any time someone mentions one of the budget cuts that came with Congress passing its most recent continuing-resolution budget, and laments those cuts, someone else jumps in and says, “We can’t balance the budget without making some painful decisions.” That is fine in theory — but will those same people say the same thing when it comes time to renew the tax cuts that Trump initiated during his first term, and which continue to privilege the highest earners? It may be futile these days to point out this hypocrisy, but it is becoming a theme for an administration where sacrifices are not being evenly shared and a disproportionate amount of the burden is on those already struggling to make it in this new America.

This article appears in The Source Weekly March 20, 2025.