Put your money where your mouth is. I heard this saying many times when I was growing up. It means that we have to back up our talk with money or other valuables. Put your money where your mouth is was a living challenge. The challenge continues to this day.

Let me go a little further. Matthew 6:21 says that, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be.” Luke 12:34 says it a little differently: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

We can tell what is important to us by where we put our money and/or other valuables. This is no less true for state budgets. Put your money where your mouth is.

No matter what we say, budgets tell us where our collective hearts are. Where we expend our money tells us where our hearts are.

We are in a budgetary crisis in Alabama. We do not have a budget to fund any Alabama state government except for public education. The budget year starts Oct. 1, just two weeks from now. We failed to complete a budget in the regular legislative session. The Legislature passed a budget, but the governor vetoed it. Then we failed to pass a general fund budget in the first legislative special session. Now, we are back in the second special session and the situation is dire.

To understand where our treasure and therefore our hearts are, we must look at what we expend our money on and from whom we collect our money to spend. I ask you, are our hearts on justice? I answer with and emphatic “no!” We have cut back on funding for the court system so much we cannot even get anyone on the phone in circuit clerk’s offices. Our hearts are not on justice.

On the other hand, our prison system has expanded and expanded. It is the second largest expenditure in the general fund budget. We will pay to keep people in jail or prison.  Alabama has the third highest rate of incarceration in the world and we continue to find ways to increase these numbers.

Our mental health system has been devastated because it has been virtually defunded. Mental health has been zeroed out in the proposed budget we are considering. Many of the mentally ill end up in jail or prison. The mentally ill are among the least of these. The imprisoned mental ill are the least of the least.

We say we are for jobs and economic development. However, we shun the opportunity to bring 30,000 jobs to Alabama that would impact every county in Alabama. That’s what expansion of Medicaid would do in addition to saving lives, reducing pain and suffering, saving rural hospitals, adding revenues to the state coffers, etc. However, we pay dearly for other industries to come to Alabama.

We say we want to protect our citizens but we have cut the Department of Agriculture so much it cannot even check to see if we are being cheated every time we fill our gas tanks. We simply do not protect our consumers.

We say we want to protect our citizens but we will not adequately fund state troopers and law enforcement. We have gutted child abuse and neglect. We say we love our children but will not protect them from abuse.

Medicaid is the largest item in the general fund budget. However, that’s only because the federal government gives $2 for every $1 the state puts up. We still have the skimpiest funded Medicaid in the country. Without the matching money, we would not put up a dime.  We say health is important, but our money says something very different.

There are many other budgetary spending examples but it is not just where we spend or refuse to spend our money that tells where our hearts are. Where we collect or fail to collect revenues speaks loudly about where our hearts are.

We pay more property taxes on one house than we pay on 500 acres of land. We tax food for human babies but not food for baby farm animals. Our budgets say we value animals more than we value human beings and we value land more than we value the homes we live in.

Every exemption or reduced rate of tax collection is expenditure. We tax food at the full rate but we tax autos at half the rate. We value cars over food for humans. From whom we collect revenues tell where our hearts are. Put your money where your mouth is.