Last week, I wrote that there is no budget surplus, as our Arrogant Lazy Authoritarian (ALAIC) Gavin Newsom said when he signed “the budget” last week. The first rule of government budgeting is to never spend nonrecurring funds on recurring expenses, yet that is exactly what ALAIC Newsom, and his minions in the State Legislature, are doing with what little of the budget they have enacted to this point. ALAIC Newsom is promising to pay rent, utilities, and tons of other of the personal expenses of millions of Californians using borrowed federal money, federal money that will not be there next year.
But, when you are facing a recall like ALAIC Newsom is, what better way to win than to bribe voters to make them forget that it was the orders of ALAIC Newsom that cost them their jobs in the first place. Two things happens with such a bribe: (1) Voters get a short term benefit because they avoid the immediate consequence of the ill-conceived government policy; and (2) the long term effects of the disastrous policy get passed off to someone else. The looming disaster gets covered over by the propaganda puppets in the mainstream media, who dutifully report ALAIC Newsom’s false narratives about his budget, and ALAIC Newsom continues to avoid responsibility for the damage he has done. When the collapse comes, and it is inevitable that it will, someone else will get the blame, the politicians in charge will try to raise our taxes to pay for the mess they created, and the propaganda machine will once again justify ALAIC Newsom’s mismanagement. That is the plan.
If you don’t believe me, believe Jerry Brown, who said this week that the budget is “unsustainable.” That is “politicianese’ for an unmitigated disaster. And it’s not being said by me, who many dismiss as some crazy partisan. It is being said by a former Governor who was not known for his stinginess. Jerry Brown was a big spending leftie, yet even he sees the handwriting on the wall. He put his finger on the exact problem. The state’s spending spree is being financed by a federal borrowing spree, a disaster at two levels of government. We are starting to see increasing inflation because of the federal borrowing spree. The state’s mismanagement of the federal money only exacerbates this horrible policy.
So we know the state’s spending spree is “unsustainable,” but the other side of the question is “Is it necessary?” In response to a question last week about the increase in gas taxes, ALAIC Newsom said it was necessary to fix the roads. One would think, based on that comment, that the money did not exist before. The problem is — it did. The state government just chose to spend it on things that actually didn’t fix the roads. Like in this budget, they are “leveraging” $5 billion of those dollars to fight climate change. No potholes fixes as promised, just big government priorities to try and reshape our lives so that we are forced to live the way they want. That’s just one small example (to the extent $5 billion is small).
The fact is that since 2000, California government general fund spending has increased by $90 billion and overall spending (general and special funds, which includes gas tax money) has increased $129 billion. Just to put that in perspective, in the 2000-01 budget, overall spending was $96.3 billion. General fund spending was $78 billion. That means we are spending more than double what we were spending just 20 years ago, with no better government. The DMV is still slow, gas prices are still way too high, our transportation system is still a mess, EDD still can’t process an unemployment claim. Our schools are still horribly incompetent at educating our students, our streets smell so much worse because the government allows the homeless to run wild in our streets, our crime rate is increasing, our houses still cost too much (mostly due to government fees and taxes), our freeways are still jammed with traffic, and we still hear from our government political leaders that they don’t have enough money.
Any of this sound familiar? In 1970, the Temptations released their song “Ball of Confusion.” My favorite line in that song still is “Politicians say more taxes will solve everything (and the band played on).” In 1970, overall state spending in California was $6.5 billion. The politicians got their more taxes, and it didn’t solve a thing.
We know that the revenue from the taxes we pay will not sustain California’s spending spree. We also know there is a spending spree because both general fund and overall spending has more than doubled in the last 20 years, and we have seen no improvement in any government service. When you hear some politician say some government service has suffered from “neglect,” that politician is lying, plain and simple. They have never lacked for money, they have lacked vision, correct priorities, and due regard for the lives and pocketbooks of their constituents.
This is our fault. We deserve the government we get, because we keep electing the Democrats, who have wasted billions, and put them in charge of the budget. This problem is theirs, and when the collapse comes, and it will come in the next several years, they will do all they can to avoid responsibility. If the majority of Californians continue to buy their excuses, then we will deserve all the bad things that will come from California’s collapse.