# You Balance the California Budget **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 30, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501 "2009-06-30T18:27:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/61 "2009-07-02T02:35:53Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Maybe they could just tax the shit out of all the rich people and evil corporations in the state? This seems to be the default answer, so why couldn’t it work in this case too? Say the state set the upper tax limit for anyone making over $200k a year (well, since it’s California, maybe $500k a year) to 60% and increase the taxes on all (non-Green, non-organic, evil type) corporations really really high (or something equally vague but righteous sounding)? > > Then sit back and watch the money roll in and the deficits go down. Bob’s your uncle! No more deficit AND you get to keep all your social programs, special interest programs (Federal dollahs) and everything else! > > What are they waiting for?? > > -XT That’s a joke, right? There’s a reason that a lot of CA businesses and people have moved to Nevada (or someplace else) in the last few years, and your proposal is it. I have a heck of a lot of friends who live in Las Vegas and Reno. They and their employers used to be here, but NV is far more business-friendly. My own city has been known to make it so difficult for businesses to move in here that we are in danger of turning into a retirement town staffed by college students. A few years ago HP wanted to build a small office here. No pollution, no huge infrastructure, easy tax money and a bunch of good jobs–so naturally the city blocked the whole thing. Meanwhile, we’re losing quite a few good businesses that have been here for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/62 "2009-07-02T03:10:12Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > …because even if they taxed the rich at 99%, the legislature would STILL outspend that tax revenue – which would then lead to more borrowing to make up the shortfall — and more tax revenue diverted to pay the interest on the debt, etc, etc. > > It’s the fundamental “brains” of lawmakers that are broken, not the distribution of the tax burden. Legislators? Lawmakers? Perhaps. But the good “common folk” of CA have no more fiscal discipline, probably rather less. Ballot propositions account for a good deal of the mess in the state today. ETA: > [@dangermom](#): > > That’s a joke, right? Without wanting to put words in **xtisme** ’s mouth, I think I can safely say, yes, he was joking ;). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/63 "2009-07-02T06:38:26Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > The short answer would be the Republican reply of 'How are we supposed to play nice with a group who refuses to consider any serious budget cuts of some of their sacred cow programs? Except that during the first crisis the Dems did agree to cut lots and lots of programs. But even then only a very few Republicans would vote for any tax increases at all, and they got labeled as traitors. So, if the Republicans say that, they are lying. But they actually don’t even say that - they just continue to rant about the evils of taxation. > [@](#): > > The long answer has to do with the complex nature of California politics, and how different regions (and cities) in the state are controlled by really powerful local groups who pretty much refuse to work and play well with each other, coupled with the states own constitution and the perverse nature of the California voter. California politics isn’t about Democrat vs Republican…it’s a Byzantine maze of factions and groups who want to keep what they have while being perfectly willing to have some other group give up THEIR goodies. For the common good of course. Gee, I’ve only lived in California for 13 years, so what do I know? :rolleyes: The California crisis is actually just the natural result of Republican politics - cutting taxes while imagining that people will happily give up the benefits they get from government in return. This stupidity not only is killing us, it also led to the Bush deficit. Here the 2/3 law has institutionalized this crap. Polls show continued support for money for jails and schools, but over 1/3 don’t want to pay - either because they are anti-school or they don’t get the connection. Plus, the Republicans have sold the voters on term limits, because of course it is just wrong for a politician to stay in office long enough to know how to get things done, and the average ditch-digger is a lot smarter than the average politician. Therefore the representatives have to start planning right away for up or out - they need to go to the next higher branch, or get a lobbying job ready. The only continuity in Sacramento is the lobbyists, who don’t have term limits. So, California voters bought into the “government bad” thing big time back when government worked - and now they do have bad government. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/64 "2009-07-02T06:58:36Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Okay, let’s step back a second and look at the problem logically. > > [Here’s a link](http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/agencies.html) to the California state budget. > > From it, we can quickly see that BY FAR the two biggest items are K-12 education, and Health and Human Services. Those two items alone make up more than half of the entire budget. > > In HHS, the two biggest budget sinks are Medi-Cal, which provides health care services to low-income people, and Social Services, providing assistance to low-income people. > > K-12 education is interesting. Here’s the complete budget: [PDF](http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/GovernorsBudget/6000/6110.pdf). > > From what I can tell, the state K-12 budget does not pay for teachers and schools directly - that’s up to local communities, paid with property taxes. Rather, the state education budget is a giant grab-bag of additional programs and services meant to help achieve better educational outcomes. It includes things like 1.2 billion dollars for ‘K-3 class size reduction’, 1.9 billion for ‘child development’, 546 million for after school programs, 900 million for ‘economic impact aid’, 3.1 billion for Special Ed, a billion dollars for ‘targeted instruction’, and numerous other plans and programs. Sam, you clearly don’t understand how California education is funded. All property taxes go directly to the state, where they are allocated to the school districts according to a formula set into place when Prop 13 passed. (or thereabouts.) This is based on school spending them, and hasn’t changed with changing demographics, because LA, who has most of the legislators, did very well. Local school districts have little or no control over a lot of their funding. My district, which was a lot more rural and poorer when the allocation got set, gets a lot less funding per student than one over the hill, even though a section of it now has million dollar houses and contributes a lot in property tax revenue to the state. For instance when I was involved in the GATE group in our district, each GATE student got an allocation set by the state, and not controlled locally. Prop 98, which is the biggest item in your link, was a proposition passed to give the schools a guaranteed percentage of the budget, since they were being ripped off. It is yet another example of how propositions boxed in government. Money has been “borrowed” from what is owed from Prop 98 in the past few years, and there is an active lawsuit to try to force the state to give it back. So the situation is far more complex than you can get from glancing at a budget. Yes there are initiatives like trying to get more teachers into K-3 to reduce class size - but since districts can’t do something like this themselves (they don’t have the money) it becomes all or nothing. The proposition system makes running state government roughly equivalent to trying to dock an ocean liner when the only controls you have is hard aport or hard astarboard. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/65 "2009-07-02T14:51:49Z")
Okay… So is basic funding for schools counted in that K-12 budget? Or is it in some other part of the budget? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/66 "2009-07-02T15:04:19Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > [Soak the rich, lose the rich](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260067214828295.html). This happens to be under moderate trends, but a sudden hike would of course cause a greater effect. Well, Florida _still_ has no state income tax, and we’re now broke too. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/67 "2009-07-02T16:22:49Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Okay… So is basic funding for schools counted in that K-12 budget? Or is it in some other part of the budget? It’s in at least the Prop 98 part, which controls the level of funding. I don’t have time to hunt for it elsewhere. This is one place where I agree with the conservative position that local control would be far better than the mess we have now. One of the reasons for this system was to reduce inequity between rich and poor districts, but we kind of institutionalized inequity, and it is far from clear that things got better. I know some of the people on our school board, and one of the big problems is that they produce a balanced budget only to have the state yank away money at the last minute. That makes it kind of tough to plan. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/68 "2009-07-02T16:33:22Z")
There are many problems, but in reality the basic one is seflishness of most everybody. This is a burden that the residents of California (myself included) must bear. Everybody doesn’t wannt their taxes raised or their program cut, but doesn’t have problem imposing the burden on someone. That will not change easily, but inreality EVERYBODY must bear the burden, whether it is through taxes or cuts in services, it is just the way it is. Trying to find the magic formula that causes the least political damage with a deficit this size is simply not tenable. It is going to require our politicians to make the tough decisions for us, the politically unpoular ones, the decisions that will probably cost them their jobs. And I am talk about real soultions, not grandstanding ploys like Arnie did (who I actually kind of like usually) with dramatic cuts in services while drawing a line in the sand about taxes. IT JUST WON’T WORK. This requies far less dogmatism and far more pragmatism, unfortunately there is too much of the former and not enough of the latter in our elected officials. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/69 "2009-07-02T19:40:38Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > This requies far less dogmatism and far more pragmatism, unfortunately there is too much of the former and not enough of the latter in our elected officials. I think the only long term change of attitude we’ll get is when the service cuts start hurting Mr. and Ms. Average Tax-Hating Californian. At least some of them may figure out that you can’t eliminate a $20 billion deficit by taking away the state reps cars. If the anti-tax Republicans start getting hammered by angry constituents (or even better, beaten) we might be able to get the structural changes through that will prevent this from happening again. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/70 "2009-07-02T21:21:42Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I think the only long term change of attitude we’ll get is when the service cuts start hurting Mr. and Ms. Average Tax-Hating Californian. Only slightly off-topic: In 2002, Santa Clara County passed an initiative that raised a _ **fee** _ $20 per year per household for open spaces and recreation. It passed by a clear majority. Fast forward and a group (I think their official name is _ **Mr and Ms Average Tax-Hating Californians** _ - MaMATHC) sued claiming that it was a _ **tax** _, not a _ **fee** _ and therefore required 2/3 rather than a simple majority. The California Supreme Court agreed. Fast forward a bit more and MaMATHC won a class action lawsuit to get that money (7 years of it) refunded (with $7m going to Grabbit and Run LLC in lawyers fees, not to mention the costs of administering the refund). I just got my claim form in the mail yesterday. I can join the class action and claim back 7yrs x $20. In a reversal of the usual taxpayer revolt, I tore mine up. I’d rather my tax money go to open spaces. I think this little affair is a neat microcosm of the state problems as a whole. To recap: [ul] [li]Legislature is powerless because of term limits so …[/li][li]All the important stuff happens by the initative process but…[/li][li]The initiative process is a blunt instrument and hard to wield effectively so…[/li][li]It results in wacky ideas like long term commitments to spending, impossible to increase taxes, and…[/li][li]Term limits[/li][/ul] ..and so the cycle repeats. Because we don’t expect the legislature to actually do anything (that’s what the initiative process is for) they don’t. Instead they cluster around the wingnut/moonbat extremities and obstruct obstruct obstruct. We are prisoners to the extremists at either end of the political spectrum. I wish we had a do-over on the California Consitution and started by getting rid of the initiative process. You don’t have a dog and bark yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/71 "2009-07-02T21:54:45Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > To recap: > > [ul] > [li]Legislature is powerless because of term limits so …[/li][li]All the important stuff happens by the initative process but…[/li][li]The initiative process is a blunt instrument and hard to wield effectively so…[/li][li]It results in wacky ideas like long term commitments to spending, impossible to increase taxes, and…[/li][li]Term limits[/li][/ul] Excellent summary. > [@](#): > > I wish we had a do-over on the California Consitution and started by getting rid of the initiative process. You don’t have a dog and bark yourself. Well, I used to bark with my dog. He enjoyed it. 🙂 My only concern is that if there is a new Constitutional Convention it might wind up with a Constitution with hardly any taxes but lots of spending, with the magic revenue fairy (also known as the Laffer Curve) taking care of everything. Since Republicans like 2/3 so much, I propose that all Republican nominating conventions require 2/3 vote to nominate someone for office. They’d never settle on anybody then. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501/72 "2009-07-02T21:57:35Z")
The process for a Constituitional Convention, even if it were to start tomorrow, would mean nothing changes for about 2 years, won’t do anything for the present situtation. Still it is badly needed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-balance-the-california-budget/501501.md?page=3)