Bitter reminder

Like grief, recessions, it seems, have stages, too.

When the U.S. economy tanked in 2008 because some colossal boobs loaned money to some other colossal boobs, we were stupefied. Soon, our collective shock gave way to outrage as we watched jobs and retirement accounts evaporate. Now, we're in what strikes me as the resentment stage.

Those who cannot find work have begun to resent those who never lost it. Those whose wages have been frozen or cut have begun to resent those whose salaries have escaped harm. Those who pay taxes have begun to resent those who, because of how they make their living, receive them.

This bitterness can be witnessed in Wisconsin, where state employees, public school teachers and others have stormed the state Capitol in Madison by the thousands to protest cuts to narrow a projected state budget deficit that, according to some estimates, soon will exceed $3 billion.

Since they didn't cause this deficit directly, these protestors are wondering why they should be the ones who take the fall for it.

To which those demanding the cuts respond: Tough.

Though not to the degree it is being manifested in Wisconsin, a similar resentment has taken root here.

At $127 million the South Dakota budget deficit is small change in comparison to the one in the Badger State, but like his counterpart in Wisconsin, Gov. Dennis Daugaard has chosen to slash spending rather than lift taxes to close the shortfall.

His decision has drawn out a painful division.

On one side are those South Dakotans whose jobs are dependent on state spending: nursing home workers, state and university employees, public school teachers and the like. They find the decision unreasonable, especially considering that the recession was none of their doing and that some of them already have had their pay frozen for a while and aren't exactly rolling in dough as it is.

On the other side are those South Dakotans who've gotten the shortest end of the stick in this crummy economy. They've lost jobs and homes and in some cases everything else. The recession, they're prone to say when explaining their support of the proposed budget cuts, has brought them misery. So it is only fair – or at least understandable – they have some company.

Each has a point. Neither is to blame for this budget crisis. They are collateral damage, victims of the same crime, and if I fault the governor and other state leaders for anything, it is their failure to keep reminding us of that – and sometimes to remember it themselves – as we muddle through this mess.

Because it is one thing to call for a $127 million budget cut. But it is another altogether to leave the impression that we somehow brought this on ourselves through bloated government payrolls and poorly managed schools, that the people who oversee our courts and maintain our roads and care for our elderly and educate our children are profligates who've been wasting taxpayer money for years and this cut will fix that – and them.

I have a strong suspicion there are some legislators in Pierre who think that – and have always thought that – and like some of their peers in Wisconsin, they see this moment as an opportunity to cross something off their political wish lists.

I don't sense the governor shares this rotten and underhanded sentiment. But I can’t say for certain. If he has come to the defense of those people who oversee our courts and maintain our roads and care for our elderly and educate our children, if he has said how he thinks this entire situation stinks and how this is clearly one of those examples of a bad thing happening to good people, I've missed it.

We cannot continue to spend money we do not have. In the process, though, we must neither take advantage of nor turn on each other.

"But hushed be every thought that springs from out the bitterness of things." We ought to heed the poet William Wordsworth's advice. But if we cannot, we know who brought us to this bitter place.

If we should resent anyone, we should resent them.