During the budget week from hell, we mildly cheered on the progress of the budget process. We were concerned about the short-term budget issues, but were also dismayed by the rapid rightward shift of the negotiations. Unfortunately, as an Editorial Board we simply cannot support the measures as they have been brought to the May 19 Special Elections Ballot. We share the concerns of the League of Women Voters that this package was poorly designed and poorly executed, resulting in a plan that will ultimately create more harm than good. And since none of these measures address the structural revenue gap, adding another layer to an already suffocating fiscal straightjacket makes no sense whatsoever.
We do not appreciate the fearmongering message from supporters of the initiatives, who obviously can't find anything to recommend in these solutions and thusly must warn of impending doom in order to get them passed. We remind voters the words of Bill Clinton: "If one candidate's trying to scare you, and the other one's trying to get you to think... if one candidate's appealing to your fears, and the other one's appealing to your hopes, you'd better vote for the one who wants you to think and hope."
This is what the Caliticians think about the May Special Election Initiatives. Believe it or not, they are endorsing a vote against all the initiatives that our legislators worked so hard to agree on in order to pass a workable budget. And guess what? I think they're right in doing so.
Let me tell you why after the flip... |
Why have I turned so sour on the May Props? The Caliticians' take on Prop 1A pretty much explains it:
And there's actually much more. We don't have to guess about the impact of spending caps. In 1992, Colorado instituted a spending cap as part of TABOR, and within a few years spending on education, health care, and practically all other measures of government dropped from the middle of the pack relative to other states to almost dead last in every category. Considering that California ALREADY ranks near the bottom in these categories, the result would be even more disastrous. The California Budget Project estimates that the cap would force the state to reduce expenditures $16 billion dollars below the Governor's baseline spending projections by 2010, $17 billion by 2011 and $21 billion by 2012. That's a FAR BIGGER gap than the two years of tax revenues that would be lost by voting down 1A. These revenues are highly unlikely to ever be recovered, because of the faulty indexing of the cap and the fact that it's based on a level of revenues made during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And Democrats claiming that there's an ingenious "out" of the spending cap because it could be raised if taxes are raised neglect to mention that this doesn't apply to fees, which would essentially end any efforts to work around the conservative veto by raising revenues through fees to fill a budget gap. In fact, the way the spending cap is structured, it would force contributions into the rainy day fund EVEN IN DOWN BUDGET YEARS.
Failure of Prop 1A would indeed reduce funding to our government in 2011-2013. Yet this assumes that legislators could never deal with revenues in the intervening two years. Further, the increased revenues we would receive from Prop 1A are simply not worth the long-term damage to our government that this measure would create. That's why the CTA and the Democratic establishment worked so hard to defeat a similar spending cap plan in 2005.
Prop 1A is the cornerstone of this special election, and it's the primary reason to vote it all down. If passed, it will permanently tie the state's hands and prevent the state from spending what's necessary to stimulate our economy and provide basic services to California residents. Even in years like this one when it's raining cats and dogs, we'll still be required to redirect funds from needed services to the "rainy day fund". Is that insane, or what?
And if passed as well, Props 1D & 1E will only exacerbate the problem created by Prop 1A's passage. Even though voters had already agreed to protect child services and mental health services, 1D & 1E (respectively) will undo those protections and allow Arnold the Governator to further raid these programs' budgets to avoid addressing the real crisis in our budget, which is the regressive income tax structure. Why must our budget always be "balanced" on the backs of the working poor? 1D & 1E will only worsen this crisis if passed, so why should we let them be passed?
And as for everything else, it's all crap. 1B isn't really that bad, but since it's tied to 1A it'll be rendered moot if 1A fails (as 1A should). 1C is an attempt to raise funds by selling bonds tied to the state lottery revenues. Now how is this gimmick better than all the other failed gimmicks of the recent past? And 1F? All I'll say is that it's much adieu about nothing.
Prop 1F would block any pay raise for legislators when the budget is showing a deficit. It is an infinitesimally small amount of money in the grand scheme of things and accomplishes remarkably little for something on a statewide ballot. First, not getting a raise in deficit years is not a sufficient incentive for anyone to actually do anything, nor is it really meaningful shared suffering. The implicit assumption that the trivial penalty of Proposition 1F could be a meaningful incentive to not run a deficit treats elected officers as greedy sociopathic children who need petty personal financial incentives to deal with the state's budget. Building this assumption into the California Constitution is unnecessary and further entrenches in the state constitution far-right market fundamentalism and contempt for the role of government.
So there you have it. While I understand the reasons why our Democratic legislators don't want to abandon the very initiatives that helped make a budget deal happen, I just can't agree to a deal so damn rotten. So with a heavy heart and torn emotions, I must concur with Calitics in saying no to the May Initiatives. When California needs real solutions to our continual budget conundrum, these would only create more problems. |
