This morning, treating the members of the California State Legislature like they are criminals, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the Assembly literally have the Capitol on "lock down" — no legislators are allowed to leave the building. Why is this?
EARLIER THIS MORNING, SENATOR DAVE COX ANNOUNCED THAT HE WILL NOT SUPPORT THE BIG-5, BIG-TAXES BUDGET PROPOSAL. COX HAS JOINED WITH TWELVE OF HIS SENATE REPUBLICAN COLLEAGUES AND BECAUSE THERE IS A VACANCY IN THE SENATE, THERE ARE NO LONGER THE VOTES TO GET A TWO-THIRDS FOR THE MASSIVE, RECORD-BREAKING $14 BILLION++ IN NEW TAXES.
Our message to Senate Republicans is loud and clear: THANK YOU AND KEEP HOLDING THE LINE.
Millions of California families that the Democrats would punish because of Democrat over-spending, slapping families with a projected annual tax increase of over $1200 a year (some say it’s over $1500 a year) are COUNTING ON YOU.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Thank you Senator Cox! Perhaps there are still real men in Sacramento!
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Perhaps! Let us be proven right!
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
So, Jon, what would you cut to bring the budget into balance without raising any taxes or fees? I’ve been asking this question of you and your friends on this blog for months now, and no answer. How come, Jon? If you want, I appoint you master of the budget. Tell us all how you would close the $42 plus budget shortfall without increased taxes and/or fees.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Fiscal responsibility is the key here. It’s been YEARS since we’ve seen any kind of fiscal responsibility/constraint in Sacramento. I’ll tell you what I would do. Look at the revenue we have and roll funding back to levels that will allow a balance budget and then I would support an initiative to make sure this constant mess with smoke and mirrors never pass. I’ve already sent Jon my ideas for a voter lead initiative to make sure this fiscal irresponsibility NEVER happens again. Raising taxes, with the economy how it is, is NOT the solution.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Finally, there is hope for the taxpayers!
Hope We Believe in!
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob…I’ll answer the question.
I really don’t give two [expletive] where you cut the budget. I don’t care. I really don’t.
But, since I am a little more draconian than the rest Ill give you a fairly ingenius solution.
We are a society that keeps historical records of budgets and the like. You look at past years budgets and find the last year in which the state spent less money than it is currently slated to take in.
Then you take a pen…a knife…a sword or whatever the hell you need to take and cut every budget back to those levels. IS IT REALLY THAT COMPLICATED?
I guarantee you that there are a lot of people in the real world that are dealing with substantially less income this year than a few years ago. What is it that you think they are doing?
They are doing what apparently several Republican legislators don’t have the balls to do…and that is make the tough choices and the tough cuts.
If a legislator doesn’t have the “onions” to stand up and honor the pledges and committments he makes or have the ability to handle the pressures that come with making touch decisions and tough votes, then he should put his ego aside (because apparently that is what it is all about for that person) and go do something else.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob,
We know you are a tax collector for the welfare State. It isn’t our job as the minority or even our responsibility to propose an alternative. The Democrats run the State, and own the problem. Let them fix it without tax increases. The only reason they want us at the table at all is to spread the blame around.
They broke it, let em pay….
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
My my; empty words and irresponsible rhetoric.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
I’m still waiting for someone – anyone – to tell me what, specifically, program(s) they would cut. Anyone? Any ideas out there?
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob:
Lets compare the budget and programs with what existed 5, 10, 15 and 20 years past. For the new programs can we explain why they exist? For current programs that have been bloated, can we explain why they bloated? We cut from there.
The democrats don’t have teh guts to cut these programs and bloat. Do the republicans?
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob
Is your reading comprehension down or did you fail to see where I wrote that I would slash budgets of programs back to their levels of several years ago?
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob,
I see you didn’t respond to my concrete points, so quit your whining!
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
And in case you forgot them Bob, here they are again:
1) California’s state government has grown by an average of 48 jobs/day since 1999.
2) K-12 spending continues to go up in spite of declining enrollment.
3) the number of state employees that make more than $200K/year has grown exponentially since Arnold took office, and the number of state employees making in excess of $100K has also markedly increased.
4) the service that I and every (legal) resident receives from the state has not gotten any better for all the extra spending.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob, here you go:
1. Roll back state outlays for K-12 education by 5%. That will be less than a 5% cut to schools because of other revenue sources. It can be easily taken out of executive pay and cutting attorney and other professional contracts at local level.
2. Freeze welfare and other entitlements for two years.
3. Open distant offshore to oil exploration and commit all new oil concession revenue over time to permanently balancing budget and general tax reduction thereafter.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob,
Before I can give you a good answer, I need to know more. Maybe you can help me.
http://www.spb.ca.gov/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=3962
This site shows the headcount for all of the departments in California Government. Note that there are no teachers, just a few cops and firefighters as those employees are mostly locally employed.
We have over 8000 employees at the Department of Development Services. Do you know what they do? And what about the 7862 employees at the Employment Development Department. They don’t seem to be developing much employment recently.
We have 760 employees for the Exposition and State Fair. Why? Can’t we just turn that over to Disney or 6 Flags?
3970 work for General Services. I’m always suspicious of categories like this. Do you suppose they are related to the 2693 employees of the Inspector General?
9782 people work for the Department of Mental Health. If they were to focus their attention on the Legislature, I might support a small increase here.
8751 work for the Department of Motor Vehicles. We have something like 170 branch offices. Why don’t we turn this over to Southwest Air or some company that has to deal with many people with problems far more complicated than renewing their vehicle registration or DL renewal.
Is there any chance that of the 2690 employees at Water Resources and the additional 1452 at the Water Resources Control Board or the 2785 people at Fish and Game or the 596 at Department of Conservation do similar things and we might do a little M & A action here? Just asking.
And what about the big fellas. Really? We need all 58,000 employees in Corrections? We incarcerate at such higher rates than anywhere else in the world. I just think we have gone off the deep end here.
There are 21,703 at the Department of Transportation. I actually have more confidence in this Department than any other.
I know that I have more questions than answers, but if you give me answers, I’ll give you budget cuts.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Well Bob it seems as if you are the one who has been off the rails the whole time!
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Your silence if deafening.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Correction: Bob, your silence is deafening.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Say Mike, any chance the good citizens of Fresno/Clovis could convince you to run for office again?
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob Evans has raised some interesting concerns and the responses have been thoughtful, but there is something we should all consider: We do not need to micro-manage the budget cuts ourselves. Republican legislators have the ability to tell various government agencies that their budgets have been cut, then let the agencies decide how best to make do with less. In most cases, bureaucrats are in a better position to decide what to cut than people who know little or nothing about their jobs.
If we increase taxes, millions of families will have less income to spend. They will have no choice but to make cuts. Bob Evans might as well ask, “What items will families have to cut from their family budgets?” No one knows, of course, since family expenses are so different. The same is true with bureaucracies. The cuts themselves are a practical necessity, but the response to those cuts is too complex to be resolved adequately at the Legislative level.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Bob Evans is correct and here is why.
Republicans in the Legislature argue we have a structural budget deficit because of “massive overspending”.
Let’s take a look at the budget over the last 5 years:
2002/03 – – General Fund spending was 77.5 billion.
2007/08 – – General Fund spending was 103.5 billion.
Here are the biggest culprits to the increased spending:
Increase tied to inflation – – 13.2 billion.
Increase tied to population growth – – 5.4 billion
So you say – – that still doesn’t add up – – the state has overspent by 26 billion dollars between 2002 and 2007. Inflation and population growth only account for 18.6 billion what happened to the other 7.4 billion?
Well, lets start with prisons, spending on inmates has jumped from 5.8 billion to 10.1 billion and that is mostly because of 11,000 new inmates due to three strikes.
Eliminating the Vehicle License Fee (becuase most of these fees went to local government and because the Governor agreed to cover the county and city losses through General Fund subvention payments) which cost the state $6.1 billion a year.
Education – – if you take into consideration the methodology in which we shifted prop. 98 funding to cover the losses due to the elimination of the Vehicle License Fee you would see that the increase in K-12 spending over the five year period was 7.2 billion (17 percent of this amount is attributable to inflation – – so one could argue that the state raised per pupil spending over that 5 year period by 8%).
These are the facts I would refer you to the Sacramento Bee Aug. 20, 2008 to see for yourself.
Waste, Fruad and abuse you say – -let’s go through the budget line by line looking for waste, fraud and abuse. Republicans have controlled the Department of Finance for the last 5 years, the budget is online for anybody to read, republicans do sit on the Budget Sub Committees to question the spending habits of each department head.
Bob is right – – there is no way to reach a solution with cuts alone.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Tom,
I don’t agree with you about the ability of the bureaucracy to make the proper cuts in their budgets. The most important rule of a bureaucracy is to protect itself. A school bureaucracy would rather cancel all of math and science than give up one bureaucratic job. And school bureaucrats are no better or worse than the rest of them.
I know it’s hard to take on the bureaucracy, but if it was easy, they would have done it by now. Our legislators need to cowboy up and get the job done.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:00 am
The idea that there is no way to reach a budget solution with cuts alone is ludicrous. Cuts alone is the only way. How can anyone believe that these proposed taxes are actually going to bring in the revenue as advertised, in this economy?
Do you really think that sales will not drop after the sales tax goes up by a full point?