It looks like California finally has a budget. This year’s budget drama may have set a record for the most protracted negotiations in state history, but none of the parties involved are necessarily happy with the outcome. Governor Schwarzenegger swept into power with promises to rein in Sacramento’s out-of-control spending. However, even the Governator hasn’t seen any more success than his predecessor in this area.
Responding to government’s continuing tax-and-spend addiction, Americans for Prosperity has been quite vocal and visible this year in its campaign to ensure taxpayers are protected. A few hours after the budget deal was announced, AFP held a budget forum to discuss this year’s budget and tactics for improving negotiations (i.e., protecting taxpayers) in the future.
Surrounded by the beautiful views in the Capitol View Room of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, dozens of capitol staff, policy makers, and AFP supporters assembled to asses the budget process and contemplate the future.
Moderating the forum was AFP’s California Chairman Peter Foy, also a Ventura County Supervisor, who introduced the distinguished panel of experienced experts: John Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Jason Clemens of Pacific Research Institute, and Deborah Gonzalez from Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines’ office.
Having been at Assemblyman Villines’ side throughout the budget ordeal, Deborah Gonzalez probably would have preferred a well-deserved nap to participating in a forum. But with nineteen years of budget negotiations under her belt, Gonzalez was more than ready to share her thoughts. She described this year’s negotiations as “one of the most painful and arduous” she’s seen. This can be attributed to a much tougher political environment—with three new party leaders in the capitol, an economy “in transition” and redistricting-induced polarization. Gonzalez did give the new leaders some grace, sympathizing that any new party leader would have major trouble dealing with a $17 billion deficit.
Gonzalez went on to discuss her perspective on the history of California budgets, and her qualms about rainy day funds. Too often such funds allow easy access to money and no real spending problems are solved. Instead, a spending limit would help place a cap on freewheeling politicians. If Republicans were able to overcome strong union opposition by gaining the public’s support for a spending cap, Gonzalez was confident such a cap would solve many budget problems for future legislators.
A recent transplant to California from Canada, Jason Clemens offered many lessons he and the Canadian government learned regarding Canada’s budget process. Some of the stories of reform within the Canadian government—a socialist government—were extremely encouraging. If even Canadian socialists eventually came to realize that raising taxes doesn’t seem to solve revenue shortfalls, there is hope for California. It took six to ten years for Canada to shift their budget debate from which taxes to raise to which taxes to cut. Clemens also mentioned that Canada is now working on making its corporate tax rate the lowest of the G-8 countries in order to attract investors in their economy. With Clemens’ experience and knowledge about failed socialist budget policies, he’s certainly a welcome addition to the fight against our increasingly-socialized government.
No stranger to California’s budget woes, John Coupal heaped praise on the Republican Caucus for sticking together under the great leadership of Mike Villines and Dave Cogdill. Stating that “we got as good a deal as we could get,” Coupal reiterated that this was not a good budget, but at least there were no tax increases. Coupal went on to state that he saw “a lot of good that came out of this [budget process]” because Republicans were on the offense this year. United and clear on their purpose, the caucus refused to take a passenger seat in the negotiations. And it certainly helped that the Democratic Caucus appeared fractured (Nicole Parra being the prime example of such division). Looking forward to next year’s budget, Coupal commented that the Democrats have hopefully finally realized Republicans won’t give in on tax increases. He gave extra credit to the Republicans holding strong under the intense media and union pressure.
After hearing from each of the panelists, attendees were free to ask questions. Responding to an inquiry about the nature of “cuts” in the budget process, Gonzalez explained that the term, as defined by government, is not what the public thinks. If a government program doesn’t receive the revenue increase it expects each year, it considers it a “cut”—despite the fact government spending has not in fact been reduced. If more voters understood the government’s foreign language, politicians wouldn’t be able to get away with their tax-and-spend ways. (How would the average Californian define fees?)
There was some discussion about the idea of reducing the budget threshold to a simple majority as opposed to the current 2/3 requirement. It seems many Republicans are open to letting Democrats hang themselves with bad budgets passed by their party alone. Even Coupal mentioned that he’d think about a simple majority budget in exchange for a 2/3 requirement for fee increases.
AFP’s forum was certainly an informative and edifying meeting. Moving forward, Republicans and conservatives need more such discussions to prepare for the annual budget battle. AFP and HJTA deserve a great deal of gratitude for their hard work on behalf of taxpayers everywhere.