California budget deal

By MICHAEL HALEY

Abel Maldonado in the Senate has just agreed to vote yes on the deal drawn up by the Governor and top legislators. Although no one is reporting exact details yet, from what we are hearing it looks like a bad deal for Californians. Fortunately voters will have a chance to vote on three parts of it in June and could knock the whole thing down.

 

According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers group, it does not include any meaningful reform, which is the key thing that I am looking for. All the cuts are one time reductions in increases with no structural reform. With this deal it appears that the state is once again kicking the can down the road and we will be back in the same boat of unpayable deficits in no time flat. We are also get unprecedented increases in taxes. No voter should accept this.

 

Maldonando wanted three things, one of which was to not pay legislators if they are late with a budget. For once I agree with Noreen Evans that this is silly, and of all the possible positive things Maldonado could have gotten this is just a stupid gimmicky thing that will not do anything to solve any problems.

 

The one thing in this whole mess that I think is positive for Californians is Maldonado's demand that primaries be open. That will be up to the voters as one of the Constitutional amendments, and you can bet that both parties will fight it. However, we should pass it because one of the major problems with the way our legislature is set up now is that both parties extreme wings have taken over. Getting in moderates who can build consensus is nearly impossible with the present system, and keeps us pitted against each other that this budget stalemate clearly demonstrates.

 

Californians have the highest state income taxes and even before this deal had the highest sales taxes in the country as well. Property taxes are not low either, but have increased dramatically over the years due to the fact that real estate prices have outpaced the general rate of inflation. Surely on that much money they could find a balanced budget.

 

There is nothing about long term restructuring of the pensions and excessive salaries, nothing about shutting down departments that are extraneous, nothing about reducing structure to permanently reduce costs in this deal. The employee unions, the 800 pound gorilla sitting behind the scenes and orchestrating the whole deal is not even being mentioned in news releases. Notice how nothing is being done to reign in their excesses at all, it is not even being mentioned.

 

This will not fly with the public, our state government is in a bubble of their own distorted reality and they are about to get a rude awakening.

Michael Haley is president of the Napa Valley Taxpayers Alliance. He writes on local, state and national issues in his Napablogger blog. He can be reached at napaeagle@hughes.net

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