One of the great scenes in the Jimmie Stewart classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” comes on the wedding day of George and Mary Bailey, when the couple, on their way out of town to their honeymoon, jumps out of the taxi and wades through the large crowd assembled in the rain outside the Bailey Building and Loan.  It’s a Depression-era run on the bank.

Once inside, George learns that a loan call has emptied his own company of any cash assets, just as he is threatened by Mr. Potter not to close his doors before 6 p.m. or “you will never reopen.”  Meanwhile, the crowd has packed into the Building and Loan lobby, seeking to withdraw their money.  George, explaining to them that he doesn’t have the cash on hand, asks them not to panic, but a panic is precisely what’s about to break out just when Mary miraculously steps forward with $2000 – their honeymoon money – to help.

With calmness restored, one by one the customers come forward to accept, as George requests, “just enough to tide you over till the bank reopens” -- $20 here, $17.50 there.

Except, that is, for Tom.  Tom’s the angry guy who insists on withdrawing his whole account.  “I got two hundred and forty-two dollars in here,” he says, “and two hundred and forty-two dollars isn't going to break anybody.”

The movie audience knows differently, of course, because they can do the math.  There’s upwards of 100 customers asking for money but just $2000 to go around, and here’s Tom demanding more than 10 percent of what’s available.  Like the others, Tom has listened as George pleas, “We can get through this thing all right.  We-We've got to stick together, though.  We've got to have faith in each other.”  Unlike the others, Tom ignores him and sticks to his original demand: “I’ll take mine now.”

I thought of this scene when I saw today’s Town Talk newspaper headline paraphrasing higher education officials: “Higher ed bailout plan falls short.”

The story was prompted by Gov. Jindal’s announcement to accept a proposal by state Senators to provide an additional $50 million for higher education, along with other higher education funding added by the House.  The changes make the funding picture look like this:

• The total recommended budget for Higher Education in the FY 10 Executive Budget was $2.638 billion, a reduction of $219 million, or 7.7 percent, from the $2.857 billion existing operating budget for FY 09.
  
  
• Through amendment, the House added $24.1 million total means of financing for Higher Education, as well as $2.3 million in contingency funding from the Insure Louisiana Incentive Program Fund.  The House also sought to direct to Higher Education $50 million to be raised from a tax amnesty, but Senators have questioned whether that money, which in past amnesties has been recognized by the Revenue Estimating Conference separate from recurring General Fund revenue, could be put toward higher education operating budgets.
  
  
• To make sure that the action taken by the House actually serves the purpose of assisting Higher Education, Senators proposed to use $50 million from the state’s Rainy Day fund for higher education, then use the tax amnesty dollars to replenish, and satisfy a glitch in the Rainy Day fund – a payback mechanism that would render its support for General Fund expenditures essentially useless.
  
  
• Together, these changes would add $76.4 million more to Higher Education’s budget, bringing its reduction to $142.6 million, or 5 percent from the FY 09 existing operating budget.
  
  
• Also, it is estimated that tuition increases will bring an additional $33.6 million to Higher Education’s funding.
  
  
• All together, these actions would add $110 million to the Higher Education budget – and lessen their total funding reduction to $109 million, or 3.8 percent from the FY 09 existing operating budget.

Keep in mind that, in the proposed FY 10 Executive Budget, due to significant revenue declines, the total budget for all of state government, factoring in all means of finance, saw a reduction of 9.8 percent.  Higher education’s reduction would be 3.8 percent.

Keep in mind that, in the proposed FY 10 Executive Budget, out of a total budget of $26.7 billion for all of state government, Higher Education spending takes up 10 percent.  Yet their reduction would be 3.8 percent.

Consider that, by comparison, Louisiana’s department of economic development, through cost-savings, efficiencies, and the elimination of duplicative programs, is accepting a proposed budget for next year that equates to a 53 percent reduction in state General Fund support, and a 69 percent overall reduction.

Now turn back to the news story, where, with echoes of Tom from the movie, one higher education official calls the plan to restore $50 million to the higher education budget “a good start, but we still have a long way to go.”

As with Bedford Falls, though a fiscal challenge brings shared sacrifice by all others around him, there’s one in every crowd, I suppose, for whom anything short of everything he wants will never be enough.

UPDATE: For more on this subject, please see the follow-up post here.