Just over transom from State Senator Bob Margett…

At the end of last week, my Senate Republican colleagues and I decided to make a stand against careless state spending and say “No” to an irresponsible and rash budget passed by the Assembly in a “middle of the night, get out of town” session. To me and my fellow members of the Senate Republican Caucus, crafting a fiscally responsible budget takes precedence over postponing tough decisions and voting for a budget that continues to spend more than the state takes in.

This week, Senate Republicans introduced a budget proposal that makes the tough decisions necessary to stop California’s ballooning deficit. We proposed a balanced budget that brings spending in line with revenues. Most importantly, we introduced a proposal that does not cut funding for education or public safety, yet still decreases the deficit plaguing California.

Our budget proposal brings a savings of $845 million dollars above the budget that was passed by the Assembly. Our plan makes common sense spending cuts such as freezing 6,000 vacant state jobs (excluding public safety and 24-hour care), eliminating the Labor Institute Center at UC Berkeley which only benefits one special interest group, and closing a UC operations center in Mexico at a time when we are increasing tuition on our students here in California. Additionally, the Senate Republican proposal re-instates the Governor’s CalWORKs reform package, targets welfare fraud, and promotes welfare-to-work programs. Re-instating the Governor’s CalWORKs program brings California into conformity with federal welfare law. This will not only save money in this year’s budget, but also saves upwards of $150 million next year and up to $389 million over 5 years due to federal sanctions for non-compliance.

Senate Republicans do not believe California’s budget problems are a revenue issue. Instead, California’s budget issues are a spending issue. With reports the economy and housing markets are slowing down and revenues for next year are already below projection, reckless government spending and lack of fiscal discipline means Californian’s are due for some tough budget love in the near future.  Passing the Assembly budget “as-is” continues to spend more money we don’t have and increases the deficit to over $5 billion next year, making future decisions more difficult and increasing the likelihood of either draconian cuts or large tax increases.

It is time California starts to live within its means and spend only the amount of revenue taken in.  We must trim the fat off the budget or risk putting our children’s financial future at stake due to nothing more than politics, posturing, and bickering.

The gravy train has left the station.  It is time to make tough decisions and display the necessary fiscal discipline to solve California’s budget problems. Otherwise, it will be our children who are left with nothing more than red ink and a nasty hangover from the mistakes their leaders made today.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.