Shifting the tax burden isn't a cut...

Just the other day I was reading an email from Rep. Lynn Westmoreland cheering on budget cuts to the Federal government which he claimed was "broke" (which an an utterly incoherent concept).  Yet the reality is those aren't cuts.  They are simply shifting the tax burden of those programs onto individuals, businesses, local and state governments.  This morning I caught a great example from the Athens Banner Herald-- DEA no longer paying for cleanup costs

Law enforcement agencies across the state are bracing to lose some U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency funding even as they face what could be a record-setting year for meth labs busts.

"The cost of cleaning up these meth labs is now falling on the shoulders of local police departments and sheriff's offices," said Mike Ayers, special agent in charge of narcotics investigations for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Thomson and Athens offices. "There's no way that the GBI could pay for that statewide. You're talking about millions of dollars. So that's going to add an extra burden on these local communities."The DEA announced late last month that it no longer will pay to clean up the houses, cars and sheds where law enforcement officers discover meth labs, leaving local agencies on the hook for cleanup costs that can be thousands of dollars.

For years, the DEA has paid to remove and dispose of the hazardous, sometimes explosive, byproducts that are left behind in a raided meth lab, Ayers said. The cost to safely remove and dispose of the toxic chemicals used to make meth can run from several hundred to several thousand dollars depending on the size of the lab, he said.

Federal officials told the GBI that budget constraints have forced the government to end the cleanup program. The timing could not be worse for state and local law enforcement agents, who busted almost twice as many meth labs in 2010 as in 2009.

"We are working trying to come up with a viable plan for how to offset these costs, but right now we're not there yet," Ayers said. "So if (a meth lab) is seized in Clarke County right now, Clarke County is responsible for cleaning that up."