To consider: a budget that meets the moment

In light of the Joint Ways and Means hearing on Monday (on education and local aid)

spring flowers on the Boston Greenway this week

One of the, rightful in my view, complaints about responses to the Trump administration has been that others aren't meeting the moment: whether it's Senator Schumer and others caving on the continuing resolution or Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison caving on their legal work or please add whatever you like to this list which is already depressing.

I have been mulling since Governor Healey filed her budget this January. While I posted about the budget from a regular perspective then, the light in which I think we really should be considering FY26 is in light of the national scene. We did have some of this, of course, back at the consensus revenue hearing back in December--

I'd sum it up as "We feel pretty good about where revenue is heading next year EXCEPT for the giant unknown of the federal government, which YIKES."

--and there continue to be murmurings at the state level again about revenue, but I haven't seen a lot of discussion of what all of this should mean for expenditures. 

Noting again that we do not have the capacity to make up federal funding for the state budget if we lose it all, what are some of the things about which the budget should concern itself? 

It would seem to me, as a state that intends to uphold the civil rights of all, and to fight off efforts to make our lives actively worse, that making sure people can live here rises up. 

That's housing, not just building more but being sure we use what we have. 

It is making sure that people have the education and skills they need to get and keep jobs here; I think here, among other things, of the ongoingly level funded adult education line (though I know that this year, there is funding elsewhere). 

It's actively offering support--mental health support? legal support?--for so many bearing the brunt of the federal mess, like immigrants, trans people and their families, veterans, and I feel as if this list could go on.

It's certainly appropriately funding the AG's office, so those there can continue to wrestle with the federal administration on their disastrous attempts to break things. 

That's not a full list--it isn't intended to be one--but I do think we have to frame the budget in this manner. I'd love for us to think of it this way.