CA: State spending - Budget initiative would block deceptive deals

San Diego Union -Tribune ^ | 7/12/05 | Editorial

[NormsRevenge]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the 2005-06 budget yesterday amid an orgy of self-congratulation among California's leaders, who were proud to miss the constitutional deadline of June 15 by a few weeks instead of the usual few months.

Unfortunately, while the relatively quick agreement on the budget is welcome, the $117.5 billion spending plan is anything but. If the stakes weren't so high, the Sacramento types' celebration of their new comity would seem like, well, comedy.

Consider the points raised by Sen. Tom McClintock, as ever the skunk at the Capitol picnic:

The 2004-05 budget had a gap of only $2 billion between spending and revenue. It's up to $6 billion this year. As under Gov. Gray Davis, borrowing creates the illusion of a balanced budget.

In the coming year, population and inflation are forecast to go up a combined 5 percent. But general fund spending will go up 10 percent – more than the average growth under Davis.

If this budget amounts to progress, as Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez have asserted, they're grading with a laugher of a curve.

Granted, the governor and the speaker are playing games here. The only reason the budget sailed through the Legislature on a combined 99-17 vote was because both parties' strategists consider the Nov. 8 vote on Proposition 76, which would limit state spending, to be the far more important battle. Otherwise, Democrats in the Legislature would have resumed their push to raise taxes, and perhaps Schwarzenegger might have been more willing to show a little spine in trying to curb the "autopilot" spending he likes to condemn.

But we have our doubts, given the governor's habit of talking big and settling for relatively little. The more one looks at the 2005-06 budget, the more plain it becomes that we need Schwarzenegger's spending-control initiative to protect us not just from Democratic tax-and-spenders but from ... Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If Proposition 76 is enacted, it would limit the year-over-year budget increase to the average growth in revenue for the past three fiscal years. In years in which revenue spiked, it would mandate debt repayment and payments to a budget reserve before any new spending. It would be much stricter on borrowing. These provisions may all fit nicely with the governor's rhetoric, but they clash to an alarming degree with his record.

Proposition 76 presumably would strengthen the governor's hand by automatically renewing the previous year's budget if a spending pact could not be reached and by authorizing the governor to make unilateral spending cuts if revenues flagged. But who can say with any confidence that Schwarzenegger would vigorously use these tools to cut spending, given his preference for cutting deals and declaring everything "fantastic"?

By any measure, Schwarzenegger represents an improvement over the Davis years. He still offers the best hope for the sort of profound reforms the state so desperately needs. But with every new compromise, California's muscle-man has us wondering anew: Where's the beef?

[NormsRevenge]

...given the governor's habit of talking big and settling for relatively little. The more one looks at the 2005-06 budget, the more plain it becomes that we need Schwarzenegger's spending-control initiative to protect us not just from Democratic tax-and-spenders but from ... Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[CaliGangsta]

The budget is still too bloated. Not much we can do about it though, just let the libs spend this state into the ground. Eventually when the whole state is bankrupt they will learn their lesson. They will try to raise taxes to fund their socialism, too bad about that 2/3rds approval needed for tax increases. We'll be left with no choice but to cut those oh so important programs like handouts to illegals.

[backtothestreets]

Is it true $66 billion of the $117 is for education? I drove by a local high school last week and saw that a new electronic announcement board had been installed in front of the school. I'm guessing it constitutes being a reading program, of sorts. I've heard school teachers and administrators say this sort of improvement raises school moral. Heck, we did real well raising moral by hand painting our signs and banners when I was in school. Another local high school reported last week that it will be installing artificial turf on the football field. Is this where the education dollars are going and why students can't have books?

[goldstategop]

It may be the best reason for voting for it... to cut down on the appetites of our liberal big spenders in the Governor's Office and the State Legislature. I would have preferred a tougher Gann Limit but heck, I'll take what I can get. If there's a watchword we need this year, it should be: NO MORE BORROWING IN CA ON OUR WATCH!!! 'Nuff said.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)