Your Budget Is a Moral Document: Equity Takes Investment, Not Cuts

There’s a special kind of cognitive dissonance that happens when elected leaders travel the state giving soaring speeches about equity, opportunity, and justice — while simultaneously sharpening their budget-cutting scissors behind closed doors.

It would almost be funny if the consequences weren’t so devastating. Almost.

Because here’s the truth: You cannot cut your way to equity. You cannot “fiscally discipline” your way to justice. You cannot tell communities, “We believe in equity,” and then strip away the very resources required to make equity possible.

A budget is not a spreadsheet. A budget is not a technical document. A budget is a VALUES document.

If equity does not live in the budget, then it does not live anywhere.

The Equity Rhetoric Is Loud — But the Investments Are Silent

I am watching, in real time, a governor who loves the word “equity” — loves to say it, loves to brand himself with it, loves to place it in every speech and press release — while leaning heavily on budget cuts to close gaps the state created through decades of underinvestment.

Cuts to early learning. Cuts to health and human services. Cuts to community-based programs that serve the people furthest from opportunity. Cuts to the supports that make schools workable, families stable, and communities whole.

Meanwhile, we get empty reassurances like: “Equity remains a priority.” “Equity guides our decisions.” “We must remain fiscally prudent and equitable.”

No. You don’t get to claim equity when the receipts show austerity.

A Budget That Cuts the Margins First Isn’t “Equitable” — It’s Predictable

You know who always feels the cuts first?

• Kids

• Families

• Women

• Immigrants

• Undocumented workers

• People in rural communities

• People of color

• Community-based organizations (the ones actually doing the hard work systems avoid)

You know who rarely feels the cuts?

• Corporate Lobbyists

• Corporations

• Tax breaks

• State agencies with legacy power

• White, affluent districts

• Special interests with deep policy influence

But somehow, the governor’s talking points always wrap the cuts in the language of “responsibility,” “efficiency,” and of course: “equity.”

It’s astounding how easily that word gets stretched to cover harm.

Equity Takes Investment. Full Stop.

Every system we care about — education, digital equity, early learning, housing, workforce development — is underfunded because of political choices, not because of inevitability.

I say this as someone who has spent years studying school finance: You can see a state’s values in its budget faster than in its speeches.

If equity were truly the guiding star:

• We’d see increased investments in high-need districts

• We’d see fully funded wraparound services

• We’d see sustainable funding for CBOs

• We’d see long-term early learning commitments

• We’d see community-designed programs resourced at scale

But when the state leans on cuts? Cuts aren’t neutral. Cuts are never neutral. They fall hardest on the people with the least political power to fight back.

So spare us the rhetoric. Equity does not live in press releases. It lives in appropriations. It lives in line items. It lives in risk tolerance. It lives in political courage.

If You Want to Lead with Equity, Fund Like You Mean It

If the governor, or any leader, wants to call themselves an equity champion, here’s the bare minimum required:

• Fund community-based organizations at the SAME level you fund state agencies to do less-effective work.

• Protect programs that support families instead of balancing budgets on their backs.

• Stop expecting communities to do “more with less.”

• Recognize that austerity is not a strategy — it’s a slow and deliberate suffocation.

• Align your budget with your values, not your polling data.

Equity cannot be achieved through scarcity.

Scarcity is the oldest tool of oppression we have.

A Woman Scorned — And a Community Watching

As a woman of color, a leader, and someone who has watched a public agency harm 40 organizations in one year, I am DONE pretending budgets are benign.

I am DONE letting leaders throw the word “equity” around like confetti while starving the very ecosystems equity requires.

We see the cuts. We understand who they hurt.

We understand why they were chosen.

And we are not fooled by the branding.

If equity is truly the goal, then say it with dollars, not adjectives. Say it with investments, not cuts.

Say it in ways that heal communities, not harm them.

Because at the end of the day: Your budget is your moral document. And right now?

Some people’s documents are looking pretty morally bankrupt.