Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
This week, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered a promising budget proposal to the Legislature, which doesn’t raise taxes and protects the future of California by continuing on the path toward closing the spending gap. It balances with little of the “funny business” of past budgets and gives education a seven percent boost in spending, yet it increases overall spending by about four percent and postpones once again the funding for roads with Proposition 42 monies. However, all told, lawmakers must finally “pay the piper” this year and pass a fiscally responsible budget and enact the structural reforms the governor called for in his State of the State address if we’re ever going to get out of these recurring budget crises.
By the time Californians rid ourselves of Governor Gray Davis and his reckless spending with the recall election of October 2003, we faced a $22 billion state budget deficit. Schwarzenegger reacted, as he says “to stop the bleeding,” last year by floating a $15 billion voter-approved bond – a quick fix designed to chip away at the state’s deficit. But now we need long-term solutions without racking up even more debt at the taxpayers’ expense.
The governor came back this year and delivered a responsible budget that addresses many of our fiscal problems, complete with a plan to reform the very budget process itself that keeps the state in chronic debt, by stopping the practice of government spending on “autopilot.” His reform would require the controller to make across the board cuts in expenditures in the event of a budget stalemate, in order to bring spending in line with revenues. Since California’s budget has been late most of the last 18 years, and with the hammer of automatic spending reductions looming over Democrats’ heads, this new constitutional provision would likely bring about fiscally responsible budgets consistently in the future.
Big spending Sacramento liberals have continually pushed budget spending beyond the state’s revenue. Republicans and the governor have rightfully said we have to begin living within our means. That requires putting the brakes on spending and wholesale reform of automatic increases year after year to bureaucracies with no regard to service requirements or available revenues.
This year promises to be one of big ideas and bigger political fights, as well as compromise and progress. It’s time to get working on the real solutions to these chronic problems; Californians have waited long enough.
Dennis Hollingsworth is the newly-appointed Vice Chairman of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, and the 36th District state senator.
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