Just over three months into the presidency of Barack Obama, the mood of the country has shifted dramatically from the deep pessimism that pervaded the nation at the turn of the year. More Americans now believe that the country is heading in the right direction than in the wrong direction -- not because the economic storm clouds have passed, but because they see strong leadership taking on the nation's challenges head on.
Yet, in California, the voters' mood about the state's future remains decidedly sour. While Californians are increasingly positive about the nation's future, less than one in four of the state's residents believe that the state is headed in the right direction. It's ironic given the innovation, energy, and optimism that have always defined California. Yet, the vast gulf between Californians' perceptions of the nation as a whole and the state should hardly be surprising. For when they look to Washington, they see a president and a federal government forthrightly confronting the nation's ills. But, when they look to Sacramento, they see a governor and state government that have consistently failed to honestly address the state's chronic fiscal disarray.
In 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger promised voters that the state would rip up its credit cards and balance its books if they approved his deficit borrowing plan and rainy day fund proposal. The voters did just that and what they got in return were budget deficits in five of the next six fiscal years and a whopping $25 billion in debt. To add insult to injury, when the economy cratered and the state's failure to balance its budget in the boom times left the state with no running room, the governor pushed through a budget that gave billions in tax breaks to big corporations and stuck working families with a bundle of regressive taxes and cuts to education and critical services.
Against this backdrop of distrust and disappointment, Schwarzenegger and much of the state's political leadership are asking the voters to approve Proposition 1A on the May 19th special election ballot which they promise -- once again -- will ensure that the state never faces deficits again.
Yet, the voters are balking -- and, with good reason. Despite the governor's claims, Proposition 1A will not solve the state's structural budget problem and, in fact, will make it worse. The non-partisan Legislative Analyst is projecting that, even with the passage of Proposition 1A, the state will face an annual deficit of over $10 billion in 2010, increasing to a staggering $26 billion by 2013.
Instead of making it easier to balance the budget, the measure would put the state in a tighter fiscal strait jacket by locking complex and confusing autopilot budget language into the state constitution. There's no question that the state's outmoded budget rules have made it nearly impossible for even the best of legislative leaders to craft responsible budgets -- piling on more unworkable strictures makes no sense at all.
But the damage does not stop there. Proposition 1A will hinder critical investments in colleges and healthcare and will stop the state from restoring vital programs when the economy bounces back. And, by requiring that money be put aside in a rainy day fund even though the state is already taking in less money than it is spending, it will deepen California's budget woes.
Proposition 1A is not the change we need. If California is to resolve its chronic budget problems, there are two straightforward, real changes that are needed: replacing the requirement that budgets be approved by a two-thirds majority with a simple majority vote to end to tyranny of an extremist minority and then actually adopting a balanced budget that meets California's 21st century needs.
Our national sense of hope and possibility has been lifted by the new-found willingness in Washington to tackle big problems with real solutions and reforms. Only when Californians see Sacramento confronting the budget mess in the same way will the optimism so vital to the Golden State's resurgence be restored.
Phil Angelides served as California State Treasurer from 1999 to 2007 and was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 2006.
Follow Phil Angelides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ApolloAlliance
Phil Angelides: California Voters Don't Want Dire Cuts; They Want Leaders to Get It Right
Before the governor and the Legislature take a meat ax to the budget, they should take a breath, accept responsibility for the voters' judgment and try to get it right this time.
Phil Angelides: Quit Bailing. Start Building.
Clean energy isn't a mirage. It's the fastest growing industrial sector in the United States. It is already generating $25 billion a year in sales and revenue, with almost no support from the federal government.
If you don't support your state, MOVE!
"Critical services"?? That is a joke, this state has been crippled with mass entitlement programs enacted by the far left democratic state congress. Businesses, small and big alike, are getting the heck outta dodge because the taxes implemented to pay for all these programs has gone beyond ridiculous.
I vote no on all propositions because I don't believe in the idea that getting a list of 200,000 signatures to push an agenda is the way to govern. We elect our leaders in Sacramento to represent us--and if you don't like their performance, vote them out.
"California governments at all levels, have more money, after adjusting for population growth and inflation, than then they did prior to the passage of Proposition 13, and this includes schools. For example, in inflation-adjusted dollars we spend 30 percent more per pupil than we did in what some advocates of taxing and spending wistfully refer to as the "golden age" just before Proposition 13."
Also, making it a simple majority would allow those same officials to have simply raised taxes all along without doing anything to control spending. We don't have a tax receipt problem here we have a SPENDING problem plain and simple.
What , exactly, do you expect the Salmon to eat?
When will these be on the ballot? That's change I can believe in!
Arnold is a Dem... he only ran as a Rep. to get elected vs. Gray Davis - incompetent Dem...
Don't take my word for it, look it up.
Dems have run this state into the ground with stupid spends like breakfast for all kids, universal health care for anyone - legal or not and on it goes. Education here is a joke... the Teacher's Mafia I mean Union runs the state like thugs...
There's never enough money... Tax-cuts for the wealthy, give me a break! Sale tax just raised (that's everyone) car license fees just raised (that's everyone)... I could go on.
This is the highest taxed state in the US now and still, not enough money.
When will you people wake-up?
"Radical Republican" the only thing radical in this state are the Leftys... Look, this is the perfect Left Wing experiment - Calif. and it's a dismal failure, Chapter 11 is right around the corner.
George Will called it out a few days ago. Its rare that you come face-to-face with your future (think the Stewie episode on Family Guy), but America can see its future in California if it accepts modern 3liberalism as a respectable intellectual and political movement.
In 2003, Angelides warned that: “A long-term deficit bond runs both the risk of crowding out the state's needed capital investments and testing the capacity of the market”
That appears to be exactly what happened after Schwarzenegger borrowed up to 15 billion dollars in "Economic Recovery Bonds"
Read Angelides and you can see how Scwarzenegger ruined the state:
http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/publications/2005dar.pdf
Second, thank goodness there is a limit to how much prop taxes can be increased on an annual basis. Otherwise, homeowners would be financially crippled by runaway property taxes based on extremely high property values.
The difference between yours and ours is that ours applies to the cumulative taxation of all properties in a certain taxing district (typically counties, but also some of the larger cities). The sum of ALL property taxes cannot rise more than the limitation. So if every property in a given taxing district rises 20% in value, taxes don't also rise by 20%. The mill rate is reduced so that the amount levied does not exceed the limitation.
The limitation does not apply to voter approved levies: if valuations rise 20%, the voter approveds DO rise 20%. But they also fall when as now valuations fall. The general revenue levies do not fall when valuation fall; the mill rate RISES to allow the counties to continue functioning. But if population falls -- as it does in some rural counties -- the mill rate must contract since it doesn't take much population loss to beat the recent 1-3% inflation adjustment.
In California you limit the increase in the tax on a GIVEN PROPERTY. That means that on the same block in very similar houses one family may be paying 1/2 or even 1/3 the taxes their neighbors pay. If family "A" bought a house in the 1970's in which they still live their taxes can have risen only about 40% whereas the valuation has increased by several hundred percent in the coastal counties, even with the recent contractions. The neighbors of family "A" are paying based on the assessment when they bought, adjusted by the allowable cap.
This gives rise to endless bickering and jealousy between people, not to mention shameless gaming of the system through "leases" to what are really new owners.