DO THE RIGHT THING
All eyes are on the State Capitol this week as discussions and negotiations take place about placing a major general obligation bond measure on the June ballot, dealing with infrastucture investment.
In our featured column today, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal nails it when he says, " For the sake of all Californians, we hope this distraction [McCarthy’s run for Congress] will not divert the members from their first priority: ensuring that the infrastructure package is linked inextricably to meaningful reforms.
As we have said many times on this page, infrastructure investment is an important responsibility of state government (though some of the things that state Democrats want to roll into an ‘infrastructure’ plan are hardly ‘brick and morter’ issues, but rather more attempts to socially engineer the lives of Californians.)
We encourage all legislators in Sacramento to look at any proposed infrastructure bond package with the following ideas in mind… First and foremost, is there a significant commitment to finance a chunk of our state’s infrastructure needs with an annual outlay of general fund revenues, as represented by the Assembly Republican "Pay-As-You-Go" proposal? This should be a deal killer. The reality is that we would not be in this situation today if a reasonable amount of funds were in each year’s budget for infrastructure investment. Any ‘deal’ should be acknowledging this fact, and combining any borrowing for past lack of action with a plan to make sure that we are on track going-forward.
Also, are there significant reforms in deal to ensure that the massive amounts of spending that will take place can be done in the most cost-effective manner possible? CEQA reforms, pro-competitive bidding measures, etcetra should be a requirement for any proposal.
The Governor has proposed a 6% cap on borrowing – this must be included. No bargaining here.
The Governor should be applauded for his efforts to define infrastructure narrowly, and not have all kinds of peripheral ‘subjective’ issues (affordable housing, mass-transit, etc.) thrown into this bill. A look in the newspapers today shows a host of articles talking about how lobbyists are all over the capitol today, fighting to get their projects into the massive borrowing package. Legislators should insist that only those items that everyone agrees are basic infrastucture needs are included.
Finally, and most importantly, every legislators must search their conscience and juxtapose the final proposed measure against their belief system. Democrats and Republicans alike need to decide if this package is fiscally responsible. Republicans, especially, run on a platform of fiscal conservatism. Be true to your convictions, and to the commitments you made to your constitutuents when you ran for office. If you think the proposal that ends up before you meets your criteria for good public policy, then so be it. But if not, don’t buy off on the arguments that it is now or never. You’ll have another crack at this for the November ballot. Or it could be that there is no ‘deal’ that would allow conservative Republicans to sign off on something that is acceptable to the Democrats who run the legislature. There is a 2/3 vote requirement for a reason.
Do the right thing.
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