Posted by Jon Fleischman at 12:00 am on Apr 25, 2007 1 Comment
A couple of weeks ago, I had a lengthy conversation with my
friend Debra Saunders, a columnist over at the San Francisco
Chronicle. We were talking about the fact that all of the
Republicans in the State Legislature (save one) had just signed the
Americans for Tax Reform no new taxes pledge.
Debra was making the case to me that she thought that it didn’t
make a lot of sense to sign a pledge against ever raising taxes,
using the argument that if you spend the money, you have to be able
to pay for it — and that spending more than you have (deficit
spending) was a worse alternative.
Debra made a point that the focus is always on not raising
taxes, rather than on not increasing spending.
As Debra and I spoke, somehow we ended up talking about the fact
that what is really needed in California is a "no new spending"
pledge. This is so true.
Tomorrow there will be a lot of news coverage of a "deal" struck
on prison reform, to deal with the massive prison overcrowding
issue, and the looming specter of a federal judge doing
who-knows-what if we don’t solve the problem.
Given that the starting-off point… Read More