News stories today are speculating that in order to balance this year’s budget that the Massachusetts state legislature is considering cuts to local aid to cities and towns. This action, if taken, would be yet another hard slap to the face to the taxpayers in the Commonwealth.

Why?

Because the individual taxpayers fund the madness that is administered by the solons on Beacon Hill. Without us taxpayers — the proverbial money tree — the legislature wouldn’t have any resources to codify their grip on our fine state. Without our tireless financial contributions via income and sales taxes, how would our elected betters pay for the patronage jobs they dole out to family and friends? How would they fund their pet projects? How would they fund their pay raises??

So many questions, so little time.

But decreasing local aid without undertaking dramatic cutbacks and reorganizations of state government would be a hypocritical step. After all, where would the shortfall from state local aid reductions come from? In a word, taxpayers. Local real estate taxpayers. The same folks who pull cash out of one pocket to feed it to the state (and to the feds) are the same folks who’ll have to fish around in the other pocket for the “missing” money. Yes, we are the money tree, whose fruit is always hanging from its branches. There is NEVER a time, at least to politicians, when the money tree lays bare and there is no fruit to pick.

Well, I’m here to tell my august legislature that the money tree is bare. Buck nekked bare. Lying fallow, waiting for nourishment before it will blossom again. And, oh by the way, not waiting for the “fertilizer” that it is constantly fed by craven politicians. Where there was once easy pickens, there is none.

What can’t our “representatives”, who are supposed to be in touch with their electorate, understand this simple fact? Why must we be once again insulted and affronted with the threat of the loss of local aid, given the amount of revenues (of all kinds) that the state collects from us citizens. This constant threat of local aid cuts, BEFORE a single cost cutting measure is implemented in the hierarchy of state government, is getting to be a tired threat.

And I guarantee a threat that won’t elicit fear, but ire. If local aid is cut in Massachusetts, without a significant cut in the state’s budget elsewhere, then I GUARANTEE that it will be an interesting election season this fall. I promise that I will work tirelessly to “retire” those gutless legislators politicians who take this opportunity to push the “Easy Button” (apologies to Staples!) in lieu of doing the heavy lifting that we hire them to do. We’re all tapped out, and we’re not going to take this abuse of government any more. We may not look angry, but I assure every single one of you on Beacon Hill that we are. And our displeasure will be recorded on the first Tuesday in November.

So, follow through with this scheme to reduce local aid at your own political peril. You have been warned.

Let the games begin!