“Government just doesn’t seem to be able to say ‘no’ to spending, turning to the taxpayers to find ways to get them to give more – more for continued spending and borrowing.”

This PennLive opinion column by State Senator Mike Folmer, makes so much sense as he identifies a major problem with government – at the federal level, the state level and the local level – as it demonstrates regularly that it has a spending problem.

“Unfortunately, it never seems to be enough and government works to find creative ways to generate more revenues rather than looking for ways to cut. Government just doesn’t seem to be able to say ‘no’ to spending, turning to the taxpayers to find ways to get them to give more – more for continued spending and borrowing.”

School districts, too, tend to follow this “having an elephant for a pet” pattern as they seem to find ways to spend first. One of the easier ways to tackle the spend, spend mantra is to incorporate “zero-based budgeting.” That’s one of the 500 cost reduction strategies listed in this report.