I voted for one budget in my time in the Legislature. It was the first Schwarzenegger budget (’04-’05), the one constructed by Donna Arduin (who is, by the way, a true fiscal conservative), back when Schwarzenegger was still the Terminator, and not the Capitulator. I thought long and hard before I voted for that budget, studied its implications, its assumptions, and came to the conclusion that the Governor deserved my support. It started out, in the January budget as a $1.1 billion spending cut. It ended up, after negotiations with the spending addicts in the Democrat Legislature, and the advocates of the status quo in the Governor’s administration, as a $100 million spending increase. As I recall, it was a $78.3 billion general fund budget.
The next year (’05-’06), the finance director was Tom Campbell, and the final budget proposal was $92 billion, the largest spending increase in the history of the state (larger than the largest Gray Davis increase). A serious dilemma was facing Legislative Republicans. The Governor had worked hard to put his initiatives on the ballot, which included a real spending limit, removing mandatory public employee union dues, and other worthy ideas. A stand-off might jeopardize those very worthy ideas. A vote for the budget would be the start of the next fiscal disaster, which would become evident about the time some of the new legislators were looking to move up the political ladder. The administrations solution? Lie to the legislators about the size of the increase. The administration literally re-listed expenditures in the ’04-’05 budget from special funds to general funds, in order to make the increase look smaller (a mailer attacking the legislators who voted for the budget as voting for the "second" largest increase in the state is considerably less effective than one that says they voted for the largest). I stood up in caucus and told the caucus about the deception, but it fell on deaf ears.
Roger Niello at the time told the caucus he was an accountant and that he believed the administration and not me. The administration numbers were the right numbers he said. It turned out he was wrong. (Another legislator, who voted for that budget, has since seen the light, literally argued with me on the floor, telling me I didn’t know what I was doing). The next year, when the administration was preparing for the second largest increase in spending in the state’s history, they corrected their numbers. I showed Roger those numbers, which confirmed every thing I had said the year before. I thought Roger got it.
Today it is clear he didn’t. The administration and the Democrats lied to him then, and they are lying to him now. I don’t necessarily disagree with his reasoning. A spending limit, a real spending limit, tied to a short term tax increase, might (and I emphasize might) be worth the price of a tax increase (depending on the size of the tax increase and a whole number of other considerations). The problem is Proposition 1A is not a spending limit. It has the title of spending limit, it has a whole lot of words in it that sound like spending limit words, but when push comes to shove in the Legislature, it will not limit spending, at all.
I think Roger has a good heart. I think he wanted to do the right thing. I think he was misled by staff that didn’t have his best interest, and the best interest of Republicans or the tax paying public at heart. He was given false information about the "effectiveness" of this limit by people whose real interest is to protect the permanent bureaucracy, the real problem in Sacramento. They will survive, and the career of a good man with a good heart will end because of their deception.
Dan Weintraub, in his book "Party of One," saw that Schwarzenegger had failed in his essential task of controlling state spending. He was right on the policy, but has gotten lost in the personality and politics. He likes "moderate" Republicans, and so he will defend them. He wouldn’t call Schwarzenegger the "Capitulator" or say Niello was wrong, even though their decisions deserves those tags, because he likes their politics. In two years, he will write an article about the spending problems that are plaguing Sacramento, and be right on point in his analysis of the problem, but then let his political predilections get in the way of the right solution. He will even go so far as to call the advocates of the right solution ideologues who don’t know what they are doing.
The better analysis of the problem and the solutions in the Flash Report today is that of George Will. Will sees the problem and the solution. In the ’05-’06 budget, Schwarzenegger officially became the Capitulator. A number of legislative Republicans followed him. Spending spun out of control and never stopped. Weintraub saw the problem and wrote about it. I showed Niello the problem, and hoped that would help in his decisions. Weintraub’s article in the Bee today defending Niello and attacking "anti-tax" advocates reveals Weintraub’s politics, and Niello’s naivete. The decision to vote for the tax increase might have been defensible, but Proposition 1A is not that defense. Will sees it, Weintraub won’t.
I got it then. I get it now. Proposition 1A has to be defeated so that the real solutions, which are massive, across-the-board, painful cuts in spending, and a complete reordering of the government and regulatory structure of California, becomes the only solution that is available. The special interests and the spending addicts will be drug kicking and screaming to the table. They will run commercials, attack the responsible politicians advocating these cuts, trot out the children, the disabled, the cops, the firefighters, everything they can possibly think of to protect their jobs, salaries, and exorbitant pensions. They will spend millions to stop the cuts that are necessary to restore sanity to the current situation.
If I thought Proposition 1A was a good idea, I wouldn’t say anything. I have never thought a tax increase was necessary, but spending is the problem in Sacramento, and I could see a "deal" for short term tax increases and a real spending limit (I wouldn’t vote for it, but I wouldn’t attack those who did). Proposition 1A is not a spending limit, it was a bad deal, and those who voted for it on the Republican side, while good people, made a bad decision. It is a decision that the people of the state of California must reject.
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