Why The Budget Matters (LA Times Editorial Board: Legislature Mugs The Voters Alert)

Los Angeles Times ^ | 07/23/2007 | Los Angeles Times Editorial Board

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he voters' new and hard-won confidence in their leaders in Sacramento is now at risk, because the budget makes last year's victories appear hollow. Californians were presented a 2006 ballot measure to preserve gasoline sales tax revenue for transportation projects, along with a massive $19.9-billion bond to build highways and other transit infrastructure. In a display of faith, voters overwhelmingly endorsed both.

Yet lawmakers have hammered out a deal to balance this year's overdue state budget on those very same tax revenues that were supposed to be out of their clutches. And what about the projects those taxes were going to fund? Forget it. Look elsewhere to pay for light rail to Santa Monica, a fix for the Santa Ana Freeway bottleneck and completed carpool lanes on the I-10.

If those projects are simply backfilled with the transportation bond money, all voters really did last year is borrow nearly $20 billion to make the next several years' worth of budgets look like they balance, while tax credits are distributed to favored industries. That's not a state government on the right track. That's movie magic.

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The worst thing about the legislative clowns who run California isn't their failure to pass a balanced budget on time. Want to know what their worst crime is? Stealing money the voters approved to upgrade and maintain California's transportation network. Talk about a legislative mugging. And they want more bonds approved in the next election? I'd say fudgitboutit!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus