There is a lot to digest in the mar 29 letter by Michael Parkyn which he or someone headlined "Choose Your Hard". Mr Parkyn spends part of his long letter denigrating the Stafford GOP Committee and Republican Supervisors for questioning and resisting a proposed County Budget for next year of over $1 Billion. It is difficult to find comparable figures over time to determine exactly how fast our budget has grown over time, but the figures I can find show expenditures in FY 2017, just 9 years ago of just over $500 Million.
He makes what he considers a telling point in opposing the GOP's call for a review of the Stafford budget before acquiescing to the large tax increases needed to sustain the spending of a billion dollars. His point is that Stafford budgets are already reviewed during the budget process. What he doesn't acknowledge is that when budgets get that large, it it easy to hide significant sums and difficult to find them without dedicated effort to do so. Whatever you might think about the accomplishments of the DOGE team at the federal level, they are uncovering large expenditures that no thinking American would defend.
Mr Parkyn also dedicated much of his letter to what amount to a series of false choices. Apparently he believes that any cutting of any part of the budget will lead to catastrophes that he alone can foresee.
Republicans believe in a judicious approach to spending the hard-earned dollars of citizens. This includes as much transparency and citizen input to the budget process as possible. Several Virginia Counties utilize citizen review boards to help identify low-priority line items in budgets. As far as I know Stafford only uses one only for the School budget.
There is a lot to digest in the mar 29 letter by Michael Parkyn which he or someone headlined "Choose Your Hard". Mr Parkyn spends part of his long letter denigrating the Stafford GOP Committee and Republican Supervisors for questioning and resisting a proposed County Budget for next year of over $1 Billion. It is difficult to find comparable figures over time to determine exactly how fast our budget has grown over time, but the figures I can find show expenditures in FY 2017, just 9 years ago of just over $500 Million.
He makes what he considers a telling point in opposing the GOP's call for a review of the Stafford budget before acquiescing to the large tax increases needed to sustain the spending of a billion dollars. His point is that Stafford budgets are already reviewed during the budget process. What he doesn't acknowledge is that when budgets get that large, it it easy to hide significant sums and difficult to find them without dedicated effort to do so. Whatever you might think about the accomplishments of the DOGE team at the federal level, they are uncovering large expenditures that no thinking American would defend.
Mr Parkyn also dedicated much of his letter to what amount to a series of false choices. Apparently he believes that any cutting of any part of the budget will lead to catastrophes that he alone can foresee.
Republicans believe in a judicious approach to spending the hard-earned dollars of citizens. This includes as much transparency and citizen input to the budget process as possible. Several Virginia Counties utilize citizen review boards to help identify low-priority line items in budgets. As far as I know Stafford only uses one only for the School budget.
Les Gabriel, Stafford County