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Ballot-box budgeting: Vote NO on Props 6 and 9
'We have to even make additional cuts as times go on because I think there will be even less revenue.'
| Wednesday, Oct 8 2008 4:33 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Oct 9 2008 8:57 AM
The ink is still wet on the $103.4 billion state budget that Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislators signed a couple of weeks ago, but we are now told California's financial house of cards is collapsing.
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Blame the national credit crunch, the slowing economy, the housing meltdown and other factors.
Put it all together "and you have a situation where the budget we just passed will likely not last through January," Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata told The San Francisco Chronicle.
"We have to even make additional cuts as times go on because I think there will be even less revenue," Gov. Schwarzenegger warned Tuesday while addressing the American Magazine Conference in San Francisco.
Using gimmicks, accounting maneuvers and pure fiction, the budget deal theoretically closed a more than $15 billion revenue hole. Most importantly at least for lawmakers it ended an 85-day stalemate and allowed legislators to go home and campaign for reelection.
But Gov. Schwarzenegger now has summoned legislative leaders back to Sacramento. California's finances are tanking. Likely a special session of the Legislature will be called to craft a new spending plan.
We can expect a new round in the standoff between Democratic legislators, who will resist more cuts and push to raise taxes, and Republican legislators, who will continue to fight tax increases.
This isn't going to be pretty. And the job of crafting a responsible, balanced budget has been made more difficult by years of "ballot-box budgeting" voter-approved measures that lock up revenues and mandate spending for special causes.
Voters are being asked to support even more ballot-box budgeting two crime-fighting measures on the Nov. 4 ballot that will lock up more of the state's shrinking tax dollars and mandate more spending.
Ballot-box budgeting is never responsible governance, but in these desperate economic times approving Propositions 6 and 9 would be pure insanity.
Proposition 6 is a dense crime-fighting initiative that does a lot of things, including increasing penalties for crimes, particularly gang-related crimes, and funding jail construction and local law enforcement programs. It's a Christmas wish list for law enforcement and prosecutors.
But this "wish list" does not come with any new revenue sources. It simply slices a larger piece from the state's shrinking budget pie.
It would require spending $965 million next year and more in years ahead. That's a $365 million increase 50 percent from last year's spending. The initiative guarantees increases for inflation.
The bottom line: Proposition 6 gives law enforcement and prosecutors a place at the head of the budget line, with a guaranteed level of funding. With its stiffer sentencing requirements and other tweaking of the criminal codes, it will increase crowding in California's already crowded prisons, further draining tax dollars.
Among those opposing Proposition 6 are California's teachers and firefighters, who also scramble for the scarce tax dollars to protect us from devastating fires and to educate our children.
Proposition 9 duplicates many of the victims' rights laws voters approved decades ago and simply moves them into the state constitution. In addition, it gives victims' families more input in court cases, more ability to collect restitution, limits parole hearings for offenders and limits the ability of offenders to compel evidence from victims.
Although many of the initiative's provisions are commendable, Proposition 9 has drawn opposition from several of California's sheriffs and county boards of supervisors because it will restrict the ability to release low-risk inmates to relieve jail overcrowding, even in the face of a federal court order.
As a result, Proposition 9 is expected to drain more tax dollars into the criminal justice system and away from other essential services, including fire protection.
Who doesn't want to be tough on criminals? But automatic spending on programs and measures that simply send more people to prison for longer periods of times doesn't make financial sense ever, but especially now.
Vote no on Propositions 6 and 9.