Budget

Budget Reform Now Becomes Budget Reform Later

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The Budget Reform Now folks, on the heels of one ad narrowing their focus to Props. 1A & 1B, have released yet another, basically with the same script only substituting a teacher for the firefighter, warning of $16 billion in cuts if 1A & 1B fail to pass.  1A & 1B do NOTHING in the current budget year or the next.  Nothing at all.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and his cadres are exploiting a crisis with fearmongering tactics to gain a spending cap they can use to ratchet down state services forever.

This is very simple.  If 1A’s spending cap would immediately limit state services $16 billion dollars below the baseline funding needed to provide services at the current level, then $16 billion in services aren’t at risk with the failure of 1A.  They’re at risk with passage.  And that risk would be permanent, and would increase every year, well and above the two year extension of tax increases.

Arnold obviously doesn’t give a damn about the current budget gap.  Heck, he probably enjoys it; he can use his new furlough tools and threaten to set the state on fire and a host of other right-wing options.  The golden goose for him and his rich supporters is the spending cap.  And those Democrats who enable him in this effort ought to understand what they’re supporting – a permanent reduction in services for the state’s most vulnerable citizens.  “What’s your solution,” is the phrase thrown around at us.  The problem is we know theirs.

UPDATE: The latest brilliant idea from the Governor: raid local governments if the Props fail, a direct contradiction of his deal with cities to stop raiding their budgets five years ago.  Under yet another Prop. 1A from 2004, the state can borrow 8% of property tax revenues (about $2 billion), which would have to be repaid with interest in three years.  The credit cards are open for business again!  While this measure represents 10-15% of the total projected budget gap, it would decimate services at the city and county level, services that – voila! – the state would need to step in to provide.  Also the Governor cannot pull this off unilaterally: it would require a 2/3 vote of the legislature.

2 thoughts on “Budget Reform Now Becomes Budget Reform Later”

  1. The raid on local government funding would be a hugely polarizing move and would, hopefully, be bitterly contested. It would be an unusually destructive and vindictive thing for Arnold to do. Cities are already facing severe financial crisis.

    And ironically, I suspect that his threats and fearmongering will merely make people less inclined to vote for his stupid propositions.

  2. The Budget Reform Now peeps just copied and pasted the firefighter ad into the teacher situation. With teh magix of the modern word processor, here's the new ad copy, with the changes struck out from the firefighter ad:

    Thanks to Sacramento’s budget mess, forced departments to lay off firefighters and paramedics 30,000 teachers have already received layoff notices. It could get even worse. We could lose another 24,000 firefighters and police 43,000 teachers, see class sizes increase, and more schools close. If we do nothing, we’re looking at $16 billion in new cuts, won’t hurt the politicians, just the people who depend on us the students who count on us for their education. Yes on 1A and 1B helps prevent further cuts to public safety protect students, prevent more teacher layoffs, and gets California back on track.

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