This morning, around forty Republican legislators have to look back at the bleary mess that was their President’s Day Weekend (and somewhere in there was Valentine’s Day, too), wondering exactly what happened to them. With the seeming speed of the flip of a switch, Republican representatives to the “Big 5” signed off on a Big 5/Big Taxes budget “deal” that would make any professional sausage maker proud.
The problem with the plan is that at its center is a massive increase in taxes (sales tax, car tax, car fee, income tax) that totals over $14,000,000,000.00 (multiply that out a few years to really see that number grow – all of those zeros, by the way, make it BILLIONS). Completely conceded in this Big 5/Big Taxes plan is the notion that Republican lawmakers were elected to office with a pledge to protect Californians from higher taxes (let alone tax hikes of this record-making magnitude). There are two underlying assumptions to this plan that are flawed – the first of which is that there is simply no way to balance the state’s books without a tax increase. The second is that there is no way to get a plan that will resolve the issue that will pass the legislature, because of the need for votes from liberal Democrats.
Republican legislators should soundly reject both of these notions.
Democrats, largely, are responsible for the fiscal quagmire in which the state finds itself today – and it is Democrats who need to step up to the table with the real reforms that it will take to bring state spending down to the 90ish billion dollar level that can be supported by existing tax revenues. Does this plan stop funding all state programs for criminal aliens? Does this budget put an end to outrageous defined benefit retirement benefits for state employees, with immediate concessions of labor unions to significantly increase member contributions to cover pension payment obligations? Are there across-the-board pay cuts for public employees? What about serious privatization on a level that will actually matter for our state’s financial picture? Massive regulatory schemes put into place by Democrats (and in recent years by Governor Schwarzenegger) remain on the books, stifling the economy. I could go on and on and on. The reality is that this Big 5/Big Taxes proposal is not the kind of sea-change in California government that is called for given the degree of obscene overspending that has taken place for so long.
As for the issue of getting votes from liberal Democrats for a proposal that really makes these changes – I would say that Republicans need to have the courage of their convictions, including legislative leaders. I spoke to one Assemblyman over the weekend, who is supportive of this Big 5/Big Taxes plan, who said that he feels that has an obligation to support it as part of his constitutional oath of office. I would submit that this legislator, and other who think that it is irresponsible to continue to push this debate out further, with the state running out of money, are dead wrong. Pro-taxpayer legislators were elected to office to be strong at EXACTLY this moment.
We live in a country with a two-party political system. Some people like that, others don’t. But it is what it is. We are in this situation because of the utter failure of the Democrats to show any degree of fiscal restraint. The obligation to step up and fix this problem, constrained by a minority that says you will have to solve it without gauging taxpayers any further, is theirs. They must solve the problem making whatever reforms, cuts or downsizing that are necessary. The fault is theirs if things get worse than they are today.
I understand that many Democrat legislators are liberal ideologues, who would probably prefer to see a radical government shut-down and potential interjection by the courts, than actually see government programs and services reduced to what we can afford. But, frankly, this is a problem of their own creation.
If Republicans are going to become a majority party in this state, it doesn’t happen by capitulating to their big-government agenda, and it doesn’t happen by showing that when “crunch time” hits – and things get tough – that Democrats can get the votes they need from the other party to continue to make everything “all well” (for government, not the taxpayers). Democrats created this problem, and Democrats have to fix it. If they can’t fix it, it’s time for voters to put Republicans in charge. When we have the legislative majority, then it is our problem, and the onus will be on us.
Until then, I applaud Republican Senators and Assemblymembers, with the exception of a handful, for holding the line against tax increases, and encourage all GOP legislators entertaining a vote for this “cop out” plan to stop, and reconsider. You state, and your party, are depending on your resolve to protect taxpayers from the unending and voracious appetite of the political left for bigger government.
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