I will happily acknowledge that I am NOT a policy wong. Some of the back and forths below from policy-wonks on the language of the proposed spending cap (that would go before the voters, tied to extending taxes that are raised in this Big 5 deal) are above my pay-grade.
That said, my "open question" on the cap is this?
I am going to throw out there that there is distinct possibility that Republicans joinin hands with the Democrats for a plan that includes $14.8 billion in tax increases is going to cause a big problem for the GOP, and that it may very well lead to losses of seats in the Senate and the Assembly. When the smoke clears after the 2010 election, Democrats may have a supermajority of the legislature (yikes).
If that were to happen, AND the spending cap as proposed in this deal were in place (having been passed by the voters) — is the cap strong enough to keep Democrat supermajorities from racheting up spending (beyond the cap)? In otherwords, when we are forced off the beach, and back onto our landing craft, have we left some protection behind?
As I understand it, there is a big gaping hole in this proposal. To put it in my "simple" words, if the Democrats use their supermajority to raise taxes, under the proposal, the spending cap goes higher.
So instead of providing a disincentive for the Dems to raise taxes (why raise it if a hard cap keeps you from spending it?), we actually do the opposite (the only way to spend more is to tax more).
This seems probematic to me. And since a number of people today have tried to tell me that the "temporary" taxes are a trade off for this limit, well… Sounds like a pretty big flaw.
So, policy wonks and wonkettes — help me out here — what am I missing?