It took over 150 days for the California Legislature to hammer out an agreement to fill a 40 plus billion dollar budget shortfall this year. The agreement resulted in a set of ballot initiatives that must go before the voters that include diverting state lottery funds to address the shortfall and increases in the state sales tax, vehicle license fees and state personal income tax.
According to a new Public Policy Institute of California poll, the state’s voters aren’t down with the program. The voters reject the proposed tax increases by whopping measures. The Governor calls the ramifications of a potential defeat “disastrous.”
So the voters seem to want to play “chicken” with public services. There is an underlying belief among the California electorate that enough money exists to pay for the state’s essential services, but that a wildly incompetent state government is incapable of properly allocating resources. It doesn’t help that the Sacramento Bee ran an article on the proliferation of lobbying activity in the state during the last decade. It’s hard to blame voters for their intransigence when they get data like these in their Sunday paper:
In the past two decades, the amount spent on lobbying in California has increased with each two-year legislative session, rising from $193 million in 1989-90 to more than $550 million last session, state records show.
The number of groups hiring professional advocates has also grown, from 682 in 1975 to 2,365 at the start of the 2007-08 session.
It’s hard to blame voters for being wary of Scaramento’s excesses. It seems that we’re headed towards serious cutbacks in services. How will California voters respond when we get there? Will it take a “real crisis, i.e. deep cuts to services (police, fire, corrections, schools, etc.) to get the state to enact much needed reforms in how it collects and distributes revenue?
Comments 7
rkatclu — March 30, 2009
I'm opposed to the piecemeal, haphazard, reactionary approach state government (principally the legislature) seems to take to economic policy. Their book-keeping antics and tenuous forecast models seem geared toward sound-byte "fixes" to short-term "budget problems" without addressing the underlying, long-term problems of which budgetary woes are only a symptom. You might call this approach whack-a-mole economics.
As a result, we get myopic quick-fix budgets that ignore long-term problems. These problems are not solely the legislature's fault (e.g. voter-approved measures which create excessive automatic or nondiscretionary spending). Factor in bad planning which can't cope with reduced revenues (dot-com bubble, current recession, e.g.) and problems emerge...
Sound-byte panaceas isolate/lull voters from facing the growing magnitude of our economic problems. When these problems can longer be ignored, the predictable result is "sprung" on incredulous voters. Having been lead to believe that the problem isn't that bad, they attribute the immediate crisis to Sacramento's incompetence.
Sacramento's typical response is a quick-fix "bandaid" approach which doesn't address the underlying problems. The cycle continues. Will the current crisis be any different? Will the solution recognize that CA's economic growth cannot sustain its current level of spending, or will it be a really large bandaid?
Missy — March 30, 2009
I think it is incredibly unfortunate that no one in our state can seem to come to an agreement on anything! First we have to deal with our polarized representatives arguing for 150 days about what to spend and what to cut, and then, when they finally reach an agreement of some sort, the citizens decide that their ideas aren't good enough anyways! Now don't get me wrong, I completely understand the sentiments behind not wanting a raise in taxes, especially in vehicle registration fees! I paid my registration 4 months late last year because I couldn't come up with the extra money for the expensive fee on top of the cost of a smog test! It seems almost ironic to me that the lobbyists are spending so much time in Sacramento trying to convince our representatives on how to spend and allocate funds. It seems to me that they should be out in the streets lobbying the public to get their support because in the long run, it is our votes that will make or break the budget, and our state.
Alyssa Milne — March 30, 2009
The amount of money spent on lobbyists and their legislation is ridiculous. It goes back to the main problems that anti-tax rioters are getting angry about: the corruption in our state government. It feels like we are in a crisis right now, yet unfortunately people live in the present instead of the future in times like this. It is only going to get worse and we need to make changes as soon as possible, not waiting for more cuts to happen. We need strong leaders who will stand up during a time of crisis and take charge instead of falling prey to trying to please everyone and having their hands in too many people's pockets. The Constitution itself should have some changes since we have the same Constitution since 1879 and California was in a Depression in the 1870s as well and dealing with many of the same problems that we were, but unfortunately they resorted to much corruption in their policies as well.
Devin — March 30, 2009
These cuts will not only anger me if they occur, but they will make a lot of public service jobs unhappy. I am not enthused with the sales tax and income tax being raised, but I am more willing to raise my taxes, pay for a few good services that could save my house from a fire or save my life during a robbery. It is funny how the public is willing to cut safety first. This should be the last thing that they touch, because if the world had no order, than we could not have a successful government. I do not desire to pay taxes, that is not my life ambition, but I also to want dont want to cut jobs for police officers when they are already severely understaffed in many counties. The Fire Department has sufficient staffing throughout most of the year, but once Fire-Season comes around, every Firefighter is needed to protect homes, people and communities. Police Officers in Los Angeles are understaffed by 700 at LAPD and nearly 1,400 in the Sheriff's Department. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department is in such dire need of officers that they are accepting Ex-Gang Members who are no longer affiliated with these gangs. Things will only get worse if Police Departments cannot attract educated people with decent pay. Public Safety jobs, especially Police Officers and Firefighters should stay constant through booming and harsh times. This should be one constant job, because without these jobs, society has a hard time functioning properly.
I also think that is is necessary to pay an increase in the price of Lobbyist's because they are attempting to persuade Senators for spending projects that will hopefully benefit California. I do not think that $550 Million is a reasonable price, but I do not feel that $190 Million is adequate either.
Corey Pingle — March 31, 2009
The American voters do believe that we have enough money and it is just the legislators. The people need to take responsibility for their actions and realize that they are the fault in this. The people are the government here and they decide what really goes on. If that is true, which it is, than we are to blame. If we are in charge of the state, which we basically are, we are the ones responsible for it. The legislators basically pitch the idea to us and we decide if we like it or not and if we do we implement it. If it’s a raise in tax than we say no but if it’s more services than yes. We are going to pay; we are going to reap what we sow. It’s not going to be easy for us to fix this but we are and we are going to get this state back to how it should be, not what it was. We could yell all day at the legislators to make a budget but at the end of the day if we put it down than we have no right to yell at them.
Samantha Frank — March 31, 2009
It drives me crazy that Californians live in a fantasyland where money is, apparently, suppose to magically come out of nowhere to pay for public services. We are going through a tough economic time, and money is tight for most people, that's understandable, but cutting goods and services isn't going to help anyone. It worries me that it will take some sort of disaster- that will be met with drastic underfunding- to wake up California's voters and get them to realize that we need the police to be well funded along with firefighters, schools etc. This is not to say that the money that they are currently getting is being allocated correctly, as it is very clear that many goods and services provided could use some serious redistribution of money so that it works more efficiently. For example California schools, who have extra cash to buy new stadiums but not new books because the money HAD to be spent on a stadium. But just because the government is giving money in the wrong places doesn't mean that we should cut funding all together because then the whole institution will fall apart.
The question of what it will take us to get it is really alarming...
Will it take some form of riot that can't be controlled because our police don't have the resources to take back the streets, or will the State catch fire again and our firefighters won't be able to put it out? I would really love to think that it won't come to something so drastic and devistating to get voters to note that paying taxes, though a pain and no one wants to do it, is how we pay for these services. We have clearly come to take what we have for granted.
When people go to the poles to vote on these issues I have a feeling they're going to vote to cut the goods a services because they don't want to pay. I don't blame voters for being angry at Sacramento for miss allocation of funds and the ridiculous way that our budget is being handled, but we can't fix it by not paying for things we need.
Ashlee Williams — April 1, 2009
I think that people need to deal with the new taxes, because from what I have read we are voting in May to determine if we will allow it to extend another year so it will end it 2011 or 2012, depending on the vote. We are going to have to pay them from now until then anyway, so by the time it is time for us to return to normal, we will be used to it and this will feel like a tax cut. If the raise will prevent loss of jobs, we should respect this because we are not in a position to say we do not need the services such as police or teachers.
Lobbyists are quick to object to their interest being affected but they have no suggestions and are not willing to compromise. This leads to the easily influenced supporting the lobbyists. They won't look at it as undoing the work that the officials they elected did.
The people who are most affected by the cuts will not be in a position to speak up and voice their disapproval. The richest,the people with the loudest voice would barely be effected so it would take a lot for them to start to be bothered by the lack of services and willing to agree to tax increases. I definitely agree it will take a real crisis to get people to act.