Posted on 06/16/2005 2:38:50 AM PDT by GOPXtreme20
Speech by Senator McClintock Regarding SB 77 (Budget)
May 26, 2005
May I ask that we take a step back and consider what is going on – not as Republicans and Democrats – but as Californians.
Today we’re taking up the shell of a budget bill. The Senate Budget committee has not completed its work. There has been no Senate debate on the budget. There is no Senate version of the budget. And yet, we’re taking up an empty bill.
And that empty budget bill will be filled – not through the careful, public and thorough deliberation of the legislature – but through backroom deals between the legislative leaders and the governor.
And I want to take a step back and ask what are we doing to the process of government. I would hope that regardless of our partisan divisions on policy, that there would be a universal appreciation – and even reverence – toward our fundamental institutions of government and toward our constitution.
Ever since the Magna Carta, it has been a settled principle of governance that the authority that requests funds should not be the same one that approves them. This is the heart of our separation of powers, and the most important single mechanism to check the excesses and abuses that occur whenever mere mortals are spending other people’s money.
Following this principle, California’s constitution sets forth a precise procedure for adopting an annual spending plan. As chief executive of the state, the governor submits his request for funds – his estimate of what it will cost to discharge the laws of this state -- on January 10th of each year.
Once he has done so, it is exclusively the legislature’s responsibility to review his request meticulously, openly and independently.
On June 15th, the legislature is required to return the budget to the governor, who then re-enters the constitutional process by exercising his power to reduce or eliminate any item that he believes is excessive, checked once again by the legislature’s authority to override vetoes.
During this five-month period of independent legislative consideration, subcommittees that specialize in specific areas of the budget are supposed to revise it item-by-item, while the public is afforded direct input into the expenditure of their money.
The subcommittees then deliver their work to the budget committees of each house, which, in turn address the over-arching questions of state finance.
Thus refined, the budget is then debated, amended, and finalized in both houses where all legislators are accorded a voice and a vote on behalf of their constituents. Once each house has independently acted on the budget, a conference committee is convened SOLELY to resolve the differences between the two houses before the final budget is ratified and returned to the governor.
The conference committee is not there to write a budget. It is there solely to resolve differences between the enacted plans of the Assembly and Senate.
Over the past 15 years, this constitutional review has been gradually replaced with an extra-constitutional device called the “Big Five,” consisting of the governor and the four legislative leaders.
Taking up the budget today in this manner would ratify this practice of the legislature abandoning its authority and responsibility to the Big Five, and consummate the disintegration of the constitutional budget process that had served this state very well for over a century.
By taking the budget up in this manner, it is the intention of the Legislature’s leaders to bypass the deliberations of the legislature and defer the significant issues to the “Big Five,” which will – after a fashion -- begin meeting behind closed doors. After many weeks of the legislature doing precisely nothing, the budget will then be delivered to the legislature for a take-it-or-leave-it vote without public notice or input or serious legislative deliberation.
This brave new system of budgeting short-circuits the checks and balances that have evolved over centuries of legislative practice. The executive not only requests the funds, but he also becomes part of the quinquevirate that approves them.
By entering the budget negotiations, the governor surrenders his line item veto in deference to the settlement to which he is a party. When you are a party to negotiations you are bound by the outcome of those negotiations – and the Governor will be surrendering the most important check the constitution envisions on legislative excesses.
Meanwhile, the legislature surrenders its prerogative to act independently on the budget, surrendering the most important check the constitution envisions on executive excesses.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate, I implore you as California State Senators to think very carefully about what this vote means to this institution, to the integrity of our government, to the separation of powers and to the Constitution itself. And I implore the Governor to consider why he would allow his office to be drawn into a debate that the Constitution reserves to the legislature, especially when it is his Constitutional role is to act as an independent check upon that legislature once the budget is returned to him on June 15th.
When each of us entered this body, we took a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the State of California. This vote today is entirely incompatible with that oath.
Neither should the legislature abrogate nor administration accept (much less seek) the power to set spending limits. This is why Arnold's reorg is so concerning.
I want Arnold's supporters out there to consider: Name one other politician in the California, hell, name one other politician in the United States who is capable of writing such a speech, much less a second of such caliber in twenty-four hours.
That this man has been so mercilessly villified on this supposedly conservative forum defies comprehension.
Note to self: read the date on the post before posting.
McClintock Ping List
(a month old, but still relevant)
Let me know if you want on or off this ping list.
The Republican party is no longer a conservative party. There are conservatives in the party, but it has become a part of government tools.
Nixon proudly announced "We are all Keynesians now." Bush thought it was a compliment and grew up to be one. LOL!
The "Don't watch what we say, watch what we do," crowd.
Frankly, they're closet fascists.
I don't want to call anyone a fascist, but these people have no love for the Constitution or for conservatism. They pick something insane like gay marriage, which is already legal, and parade around their supposed conservative candidate based on their opposition to that.
What else do you call manipulating the police power of regulatory government as a political payoff to corporate benefactors?
As an econ_grad, you might appreciate this post. Here is another about Arnold's environmental policy. Facism may be an ugly word, but that's what it is.
You are preaching to the choir. Most people have no clue what free market means. The energy "deregulation" in CA was a major disaster. There was nothing free market about it. Republicans aren't interested in the free market anymore. They have figured out like the Democrats have that the key to winning is to take from some and give it to others. No one cares about the free market. Now it is all about winning for self-aggrandizement.
Figured as much. Thought the details would interest you.
Most people have no clue what free market means.
Yep, when I go on book tours, my first task is to figure out what the audience knows (or doesn't) so that I can explain to them how a free market in risk management can displace the need for regulatory government.
I will take a look. I have always been fascinated by the idea of risk sharing. In the middle ages, farmers came out with a very smart method of risk-sharing with their colleagues in the event of draught and plagues. Robert Townsend has written an excellent book on that topic.
The Medieval Village Economy, Princeton University Press, 1993
The first chapter addresses the Tragedy of the Commons.
Don't forget that Arnold's team has a nickname for Nunuz - it is "Black & Decker". Because he is the Unions biggest
tool!
Ridicule the goons - and save the state!
I think the best idea is not neccessarily to back a party, but to back every candidate endorsed by a private organization with an ideology.
For example I support the club for growth and the Cato institute. Money I donate to politics I send to them.. then they can figure out how best to allocate it. I think that is the way to power in a democracy, is organizing with hundreds of thousands of others with tens of millions of dollars in the organization. And then they can target close elections.
The first known "risk sharing" was the birth of the concept of spreading the risk, aka "insurance" by the chinese. Theses clever chinese farmers used to have to shoot the horrendous rapid on the Yanktze river and would most times lose a whole years crop without even getting it to market.
So five of em got together and swapped half of each raft's load so that maybe half a load was better than none... bwalla INSURANCE!!! (I'm sure you've heard this ancient tale before, but I just couldn't resist) Carry_Okie uses this as a prime premise in his treatise...
Thank you!
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