Last summer, we pointed out in this space how state budgetmakers can waste our tax dollars even when they are cutting expenditures. The issue at the time was a proposed cut of $537,000 from the budget of the Connecticut Historical Commission that was forcing the commission to close down the four museums it oversees –– the Sloane Stanley Museum in Kent, the Old New-Gate Prison and Coppermine in East Granby, the Prudence Crandall Museum in Canterbury, and the Henry Whitfield State Museum in Guilford. After a statewide outcry over the closings, the governor and state lawmakers saw the error of their ways and reinstated the funding. Unfortunately, in Hartford enlightenment has a very short shelf life. Budget blunders are once again in season.

The thing that everyone but the budget geniuses in Hartford could see last summer was that the four museums represented one of the few state expenditures that actually makes money for the state. The museums were attracting 31,000 visitors annually, making a net profit of $80,000 a year –– a 15 percent return on investment. These days, we cannot think of anyone who would not want a piece of that investment –– except, once again, our state budgetmakers in Hartford.

As a “cost-cutting” measure, Gov John G. Rowland has proposed consolidating the Historical Commission with three other agencies into a new Commission on Arts, Culture, and Tourism. The plan is to divert $6.4 million that would normally go to these agencies from car rental surcharges and the state’s hotel tax into the General Fund. The result, according to the Historical Commission, will be the indefinite closure of the four museums. There goes that investment.

But wait! It gets worse.

The governor has also proposed cutting $250,000 the Department of Motor Vehicles uses to withhold car registrations from motorists who have delinquent local property tax bills and parking tickets. The way it works now is that if you do not pay the local tax collector, you cannot have a car. It is an incentive that is very compelling to tax scofflaws.

Newtown Tax Collector Carol Mahoney said this week she was “very surprised and frustrated” at the prospect of losing this “very useful incentive.” Newtown is currently trying to collect between $800,000 and $1 million in unpaid motor vehicle taxes. Newtown’s Finance Director Ben Spragg estimates that the town may never see between $700,000 and $800,000 of that money without the help of the DMV. The finance director in Stamford said that his city would lose up to $7 million of the $22 million it collects annually in motor vehicle taxes. Those kinds of revenue loses, multiplied by every city and town in the state, not only makes the governor’s niggling $250,000 budget cut look dumb, it makes it look totally irresponsible.

Much of the money our governments spend on our behalf disappears forever. But there are expenditures that make sense –– and dollars! To cut them, just for the sake of cutting something, is not an exercise in economy –– quite the opposite. It is a waste of money.