Over at Armed Liberal, I’ve got some comments up about the budget issues.
Two points:
California isn’t alone…go Google “state budget crisis 2003”, in the first three pages, you’ll see references to California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
and
I’m thinking about a budget and tax strategy (I don’t know enough detail, except in a very few areas, to actually propose tactics), and I’ll propose two basic goals:
1. Budget Integration. We need to look at State, county, and city budgets in some integrated way, to deal with the – transfers – between the levels which tend to mask spending and growth in a number of areas.
2) Tax stability. California is mandated to carry a balanced budget. We need to relook at our tax programs to attempt to get a more stable revenue stream for the state. This implies that we shift from personal income to corporate income, sales, and property taxes. This is pretty obviously nontrivial is so many ways…but I’ll suggest one point in each of these three areas that could make a difference.
The overall issue of the ‘structural fiscal crisis’ is a major one, and may be worth some thought itself.
‘Structural Fiscal Crisis’, in other words, “We’re not reigning in our spending so come up with more funding or else.”
Nope.
‘Structural Financial Crisis’ as in why do so many states and local jurisdictions have the same problems (that’s the ‘structural’ part) and ‘why can’t we manage our expenses to map to our income’ (that’s the financial crisis part).
I’ll go dig up the recent poll that suggested that voters were pro-programs and anti-paying for them.
That’s a kinda significant issue…
A.L.
Perhaps you should do a comparison of states that limit spending increases to population growth plus inflation vs. those that don’t. I suspect that there’s a stark difference in how much financial crisis is going around.
‘Structural fiscal crisis’ — fancy name. Funny how Colorado doesn’t have that problem, huh?
Actually, it’s pretty simple. Spending provides positive electoral feedback (i.e. politicians who, to quote G.B. Shaw, “rob Peter to pay Paul…have the gratitude of Paul.”) as in re-election, while spending restraint provides negative feedback, as in challengers and possible loss of election.
Near as I can tell, every elected politician in America wakes up every morning thinking, “what can I do today to get re-elected?” Those that don’t wake up thinking this are either not running again or are about to get defeated. Being seen to spend public money to benefit one’s electorate certainly tends to help one get re-elected. Most of the complaints about spending are on the spending that benefits someone else. The other side of the old saying, “don’t tax you, and don’t tax me, tax that guy behind that tree.”
Not only that, but someone said (was if Fenno?) that politicians lay blame and take credit. Reduced or constrained spending decreases the opportunity to take credit and may make it difficult to lay blame effectively. Spending, on the other hand, both increases the opportunity to take credit (especially in a divided, federal system) and simultaneously provides additional chances to lay blame _for not spending even more_ on “vital policies.”
In other words, spending has a positive, ratcheting effect on elected politicians (let’s not even go into why bureaucrats want to spend more) while spending restraint or reduction has a negative, possibly politically fatal effect. Ergo, unless you totally change the system (or put restraints on it a la Colorado) the pattern is very unlikely to change.
You should also ask what they did with the HUGE surpluses they had from 1996 through 2001. They certainly didn’t invest the surpluses or pay down debt to reduce interest payments. In fact, I’ll wager they spent the surplus for on going projects / personnel that now require funding greater than revenues realized by normal economic activity.
Ex-controller of a small city.
hey… per capita Oregon has sold out to the employee Unions to the tune of the same deficit and a looming 17 Billion PERS underfunding shortfall that makes California look solvent.
The Soviet Socialist Republic of Oregon that is…
Oregon legislature is 218 days in at a cost of almost $5bil and still no budget.
We would welcome a heatwave, recall election or blackout just to liven things up.
Slow . . . motion . . . train . . . wreck.
The entire front office of my daughter’s school retired in June because they couldn’t stand the thought of possibly losing a dollar of PERS benefits. There wasn’t a single adminstrator in the group older than 55.
Not to get all technical and stuff (and yet I am), but California isn’t mandated to carry a balanced budget. Rather, the governor is required to propose one. This probably explains part of the problem.