My mother told me this weekend...

...that my sister is hopping mad at Governor Quinn of Illinois for raising taxes in order to close the state's yawning budget deficit. And all I could think was, "Where in God's name do Republicans think the money is supposed to come from?"

Stan Collender, writing in Capital Gains and Games yesterday (my emphasis):

...governors around the country are running into serious political problems when they try to do what they think they received a mandate to do at the last election -- reduce the size of government with significant spending cuts. The governors are having a hard time explaining why, if that's what the voters want, there doesn't seem to be as much popular support when they actually try to cut spending.

The answer is actually quite simple: The governors ... misread what the voters said last November.

As Bruce [Bartlett] and I have been pointing out for months here at CG&G, poll after poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans don't want smaller government; they just want the government they have to cost less. With the exception of foreign aid, Americans state repeatedly and definitively that they don't want government to do any less than it is currently doing, they just don't want to pay as much to get it.

It's not surprising, therefore, that the governors are running into big problems when they come up with spending cuts that are based on actual program reductions. In fact, it's entirely predictable.

It's as if, when the checkout person at the grocery store tells me my total, I answer back, "That's too much. I'm not paying it."

"Then you'll have to put some of this stuff back on the shelves."

"I don't want to. I need all of these groceries. I just don't think I should have to pay so much for them."

I thought Republicans were the ones who were always saying, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."