{"id":8773,"date":"2009-05-06T02:02:05","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T02:02:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-06T03:16:17","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T03:16:17","slug":"budget-reform-now-becomes-budget-reform-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/06\/budget-reform-now-becomes-budget-reform-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget Reform Now Becomes Budget Reform Later"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Budget Reform Now folks, on the heels of one ad narrowing their focus<\/a> to Props. 1A & 1B, have released yet another<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

This is very simple.  If 1A’s spending cap would immediately limit state services $16 billion dollars below the baseline funding<\/a> 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<\/b>.  And that risk would be permanent, and would increase every year, well and above the two year extension of tax increases.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b>: The latest brilliant idea from the Governor: raid local governments<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The Budget Reform Now folks, on the heels of one ad narrowing their focus<\/a> to Props. 1A & 1B, have released yet another<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

This is very simple.  If 1A’s spending cap would immediately limit state services $16 billion dollars below the baseline funding<\/a> 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<\/b>.  And that risk would be permanent, and would increase every year, well and above the two year extension of tax increases.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b>: The latest brilliant idea from the Governor: raid local governments<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117],"tags":[6188,149,4739],"class_list":["post-8773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117","tag-6188","tag-149","tag-4739"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2hv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}