Posted on 10/07/2004 10:38:25 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
California's constitution is long, convoluted and filled with too much minutiae. But one section that deserves to be there, and is pretty clear, is the part that prohibits state government from borrowing money without a vote of the people.
Article 16, Section 1 says that the state shall not create any public debt that exceeds $300,000 unless the money is for a "single object or work" and is approved by a majority of the voters in a primary or general election.
The idea is that lawmakers and governors who come and go shouldn't obligate future generations to repay debts run up in the moment. The phrase about "single object or work" means public debt should be for lasting capital improvements - roads, schools, dams - not for the normal, everyday costs of government, which should be financed from current accounts.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, facing a huge budget gap when he took office a year ago, asked the voters in March to make an exception. He proposed a $15 billion bond, not for a single object or work, but to repay past operating deficits and ease the state back toward a balanced budget. At rallies across the state, he used an oversized credit card as a prop, cutting it in half to illustrate that this would be a one-time-only event. The borrowing, he said, would cease if voters approved his plan.
But now the governor wants to borrow again. Straining to avoid either raising taxes or cutting more deeply into spending, Schwarzenegger persuaded the Legislature in July to approve borrowing as much as $2 billion to pay the state's obligation to its employee retirement fund. His current budget counts on $935 million from this source.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Someone in CA is going to have to deliver bad news -- revenues must increase and/or spending must go down. The current situation is like using one credit card to make payments on another.
There are many areas that can be looked into. Here in Southern California, illegal alien related costs are a key target.
California could clean up its $30Billion debt in short order. As you note, clean up the subsidizing of illegal immigration. A MASSIVE COST to the state. Cut the welfare rolls and fraud...another massive cost -- long supported by the vote-getting of the liberals running the state. Reduce regulation and operating taxes on new businesses to attract more business to the state, thus generating MORE REVENUE....the list goes on.
Those are just for openers. There is no need to raise taxation in Calif. which is already obscene. Just clean up the state, and the fraud upon its financial resources.
None of it will happen, until the VOTE is less important than the condition of the state. I have lived in Calif. virtually all my life. I remember back in the early 70's when the state was CONSERVATIVE AND RUN BY CONSERVATIVES...it was the model state in the nation. I recall the front page of papers with headlines about A HUGE FIGHT IN THE LEGISLATURE ABOUT HOW TO RETURN BILLIONS IN REVENUES TO THE TAXPAYERS BECAUSE THE STATE DID NOT NEED IT.....then the liberals got hold in the state --- now look at it. A major tragedy.
Schwarzenegger is not a conservative, he is self serving, he probably isn't any better for California than any number of his Democratic rivals and he is poised to further poison California's nest.
Hopefully this will be Schwarzenegger's last term in any public office outside his native Austria.
California can cure it's ills. It simply needs to stop spending. If California does not have the will and wisdom to deny public services to Mexico's poor then it should deny service to all until it can afford to pay for these services.
At least the author was kind enough to mention something at the very bottom, though it completely escapes him that Schwarzenegger should get any credit for increasing revenues... guess it was just some kind of cosmic accident.
Tax revenues are coming in more briskly than projected. By the time his next budget proposal is due in January, chances are the higher revenues will exceed the $935 million the governor hoped to raise with this bond. At that point he can abandon the borrowing and dedicate current revenues to paying for current obligations. Which is exactly what he should have done all along.
Schwarzenegger gets slammed by the leftie press for simply breathing... what a surprise.
Go peddle your loyalist crap on your home forum.
Schwarzenegger is raising revenue at a brisk pace because he is raising taxes at a faster rate than his predecessors.
Regardless of the rhetoric from either out of state Republican loyalists such as yourself or Schwarzenegger's PR machine Schwarzenegger is in fact a tax and spend liberal. Taxes are the highest they've ever been in California's history and it's spending is also the highest in it's history.
I didn't clearly state it in my original post (although it was implied), but raising taxes is not an option for this Californian.
The cost of subsidizing illegal immigration is huge! Clean that up and you'll be well on the way to fiscal sanity. Time for a little "tough love".
:-P
Um, Dan, did you READ Proposition 58? Your hero Arnold got rid of that constraint whilst calling it "cutting up the credit cards."
Walters might as well just advertise that he's a moron.
You are still under the mistaken impression that these articles are posted on your California forum. They aren't.
These articles are leftist "crap" being posted in general Free Republic forums and, if it pains you to have other conservatives point out leftist hit-pieces, you may want to just stick to your little local California board.
By the way, I take it as a good sign when the rabid left is working so hard to trash Schwarzenegger... it means he's not the "tax and spend liberal" that some folks like to pretend he is.
Don't you see the difference?
The Gray Davis ( D) proposal didn't have an " R" next to it; the Schwarzenegger ( R) plan does.
Maybe Davis should go back into politics as Gray Davis ( R). His new supporters (R) can cheer "He can win!"
/sarcasm
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