Posted by
The CL Project on Thursday, December 18, 2008 4:35:52 PM
In today’s LA Times George Skelton applauds Steinberg and Bass for thinking outside of the box to devise a deficit reduction plan that needs only majority approval.
In the article Skelton notes that it is California's “two-thirds supermajority vote requirement to pass a budget or raise taxes [that] has made this complex state practically ungovernable.”
Mr. Skelton I beg to differ.
Currently the state faces a $40 billion deficit in the next 18 months. That is not the result of a two-thirds supermajority vote requirement.
Since 2000 the general fund budget has grown 29 percent, not counting for inflation. That is not the result of a two-thirds supermajority vote requirement.
California continues to spend billions of dollars on unproven scientific claims and environmental boondogles. That is not the result of a two-thirds supermajority vote requirement.
California’s spending exceeds revenue by about a billion dollars a month. That is not the result of a two-thirds supermajority vote requirement.
Democrats have steadfastly refused to implement budget reforms such as establishing a ‘rainy day fund’ or a spending cap that would restrict state spending growth. Perhaps Skelton wants to blame the Democratic rejection of sound budgeting policies on the two-thirds supermajority vote requirement.
Skelton and others can continue to blame the ails of California government on Republicans. They can call out the Republicans for refusing to increase taxes and ‘crippling state government’. But that blame is wrongly placed and disingenous at best.
It is the addiction to spending that has crippled California’s government and put the state in the precarious economic situation we now face.
If we are going to solve the budget crisis not only this year, but for future years as well, there is no doubt that now is the time to reform California’s budget system.
A recent poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California shows the vast majority of Californians – 68 percent of those surveyed – join Republicans in calling for a spending limit to end the obsessive spending addiction by Democrats. What’s the irony? A budgetary spending limit would likely require a two-thirds supermajority vote requirement to pass. And I assure you, it’s not the Republicans holding up that vote.