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Untangling California
For years, a shifting alliance of activists here in California has been pressing the idea of calling a constitutional convention to try and cut through the partisan tangle in Sacramento. Unfortunately, since only the legislature can call a constitutional convention, the partisan tangle in Sacramento stands in the way of cutting through the partisan tangle in Sacramento.
But the effort has picked up steam lately, with a couple of ballot initiatives being filed that would (a) allow the people to call for a convention and (b) call a convention. If backers can get a million signatures for these initiatives, they'll be on the ballot next November. Unfortunately, the public isn't yet on their side:
Backers of an overhaul of California's government, who hope to leverage disgust with Sacramento into support for changing how the state raises taxes and spends money, have a difficult path ahead, according to a new poll of California voters.
....Voters don't want the tax code overhauled in the ways that many fiscal experts promise would tamp down the wild revenue swings that have led to a constant state of budget crisis in California. They don't want the Constitution changed to allow a simple majority of lawmakers to push a budget onto the governor's desk, as most other large states allow. And they don't want the state to touch Proposition 13 property tax restrictions, even if residential property taxes would remain strictly limited.
The problem is that the partisan tangle in Sacramento is basically a reflection of California itself. My fellow residents have no desire to pay higher taxes and no desire to cut services in any significant way, and they're apparently willing to destroy the state before finally admitting that they can't have both. But we haven't quite reached that point yet, and the purpose of a constitutional convention is simply too clear to be covered up: backers want the legislature to have the power to raise taxes. The anti forces will have absolutely no trouble making that clear, and that in turn means that these two initiatives are almost certainly doomed.
But we'll see. It's possible — unlikely but possible — that things will deteriorate enough in the next year to make Californians realize that they don't have many choices left. There's not much left to be squeezed out of higher education without simply abandoning it completely; K-12 is inviolate; nobody seems willing to get rid of our insane sentencing laws and fantastic prison population; public employee unions have no intention of moderating their pension demands; and taxing marijuana isn't going to get the job done. All those things have been true for years, though, and the battle lines are pretty much the same today as they were a decade ago.
So what's left? Beats me. But unless some kind of catastrophe drives home the scope of our problems to 50% + 1 of our citizens next November, it's hard to see how anything changes. Maybe the initiative backers need to hire Roland Emmerich to produce a few ads for them.
Jarvis Gann
Isn't the revenue solution simpler than that?
Proposition 13, passed when many Californians were children or as yet unborn, required an essentially impossible super majority to raise property taxes. Howard Jarvis's right-wing genius was to include apartment house owners (his clients), oil fields, and Southern Pacific in the class of property owners.
An initiative that allowed the Legislature to raise business property taxes while keeping residential property taxes frozen would eventually pass if it were placed on the ballot again and again. Anti-smoking initiatives appeared on the ballot repeatedly until one was finally passed even though outspent by about 30-1.
Ballot propositions have to offer the voters an unmistakable benefit. My slogan: "Tax the rich. Not us."
Three cheers for taxing cigarette smokers!
Those reprobates should pay for state services, not rich yacht-owning millionaires. Plus, as a bonus, smoking is largely a habit of the poor, and just as in the Middle Ages, it is most proper for the serfs to give what little they have to benefit the land holders. Ahh, to relive those days in the 21st century!
And guess what? Taxing smokers is truly bipartisan. Conservatives love it because it keeps the tax man away from their income. Liberals love it because they are out to stop immoral behavior, or something like that.
Didn't weaker changes get rejected.
Didn't we have some props a few years back, to roll back the 2/3 majority needed to something like 55 or 60 percent. Something like that seems to be a reasonable compromise. But the myth, that the state is the ultimate spend-spend-spend monster persists (per capita spending is close to the median of the states), and that means people fear the state rapaciously wants to get its hands in their wallets. In part this is because with the ridiculous constraints on taxes, desperate state & local government, has used every means possible other than taxes to grab revenue.
And then we have some obvious low hanging fruit, that seems untouchable:
We are the third greatest oil producing state, but we take no royalities from the oil companies. Uberconservative Texas, and Alaska aren't sqeemish about heavily taxing oil extraction, but ultra-blue Califonia falls for oil company propaganda that taking royalies would result in expensive gasoline. And yes, our ridiculous Gulag is very costly -but another sacred cow.
You could always break the
You could always break the state up into smaller, more ideologically similar and governable parts.
Government by referendum at its worst.
Interesting idea
Of course there have been many discussions about North and South California. Probably it would be better to split it up into three parts. The coast south of Big Sur would be one state. The Central Valley would be another and the remaining horseshoe shaped part (the coast, the North, Tahoe/Yosemite) would be the third.
From the limited poll watching I've engaged in these seem to be the three voting blocks. Actually, the far north doesn't vote with the coast but the population there is small and they need someone else to fund them.
I'll disagree a bit on the notion that we won't raise our own taxes. In last week's election the Bay Area passed all but one request to raise taxes.
Oh just let the state
Oh just let the state treasury make brilliant investments in junk bonds, and then you won't need any taxes.
shrinking gov't
To show the effects which would reflect drastic cuts in gov't spending they might try closing down highways where they can't afford to repair them or ER-treat accident victims who drive on them. Taking away CA highways would definitely get the attention of the public.
Shutting down other various "essentials" which the gov't can no longer afford to run wouldn't eliminate those things for the future, it would just highlight for people the real effects of shrinking gov't the way the public claims it wants.
Putting a very real question to people is different than telling them the state is going broke. Until they feel it themselves it just isn't real. California is, after all, living the dream.
...have no desire to pay
Sounds like Washington. Is this the inevitable end state of democracy?
Don't the rich already pay
Don't the rich already pay high taxes in California? Correct me if I'm wrong though, please.
Everybody pays high taxes in
Everybody pays high taxes in California -- except those who pay none at all.
What I always fail to understand is when people say "voters won't vote for cuts in services." But that is exactly what they did in both these past elections, they said no to new taxes and told Sacramento to start cutting. My district rejected a property tax increase to fund education last week. In my opinion, the people are saying "cut" loud and clear. We need to cut our welfare payouts, prison population, outrageous pension plans, overpaid city and state workers (those at the top end, not the bottom end) and we have got to do something about health care costs.
k-12 education is the biggest chunk of the California budget - 39%. Of course, every time a "cut" happens, it happens at the local school level, not the bureaucratic black hole of the Ed Dept in Sacramento. How about we start cutting there instead of teachers? How about we eliminate that 80% pension guarantee for people who get the luxury of retiring at 55 and the CA taxpayers get to provide them 80% of their salary plus full medical for another 20 - 30 years? How about we deal with the 1 in every 5 residents of Los Angeles County who is on public assistance?
The bottom line is that if the legislature keeps raising taxes, they are going to drive off all the sane people who can't take it anymore and you'll have nothing left but the very rich and the welfare class. Business is already leaving the state in droves and the middle class isn't far behind - they hate the housing prices here and they hate the schools. Actually, I take that back. The schools aren't the problem, the kids in the schools are the problem. Or more precisely, the parents are the problem and they were allowed to reproduce.
California is rapidly becoming a 3rd world state in a 1st world country and it provides a glimpse of where the rest of the country is headed as the middle class collapses under the weight of debt and falling wages. Cali needs some tough love but it won't be getting any, the corruption and self-interest runs too deep now. Not unlike Washington DC.
Question
It would be really good if someone could come up with a solid summary of how California spends its money.
There are many favorite whipping boys and sacred cows. Education takes a large slice of the budget. Huge amounts are spent on prisons and guards. There are too many administrators and they make too much.
Some or all of that may be true, but it doesn't give one much perspective. Education does take a big segment of the budget, yet California ranks 48th in per pupil spending. Doesn't sound so large in that context. The UC system costs a lot but we see a huge benefit from having an educated populace.
I'd like to see the budget broken down in per capita or per household amounts. The results should be compared with the amounts spent by other states. There should also be some quantitative estimates (rough as they will likely be) as to the benefit we might see from that spending. For example, being proactive fighting TB costs relatively little compared to caring for sick patients later on.
This would be an immense task but without it we are reduced to squabbles about what sounds "fair" or what is "too high" or we are scared into putting people in prison at enormous costs when other approaches would be far cheaper and lead to better outcomes.
Similarly, it would be nice to see who pays and who doesn't pay taxes here. That would be very interesting.
A Smarter California Is Emerging
Many Californians have educated themselves immensely during the recent economic setbacks. An 'investment mentality' is spreading to all who will take heed. The creative, innovative and entrepreneurial thinkers of our California society will, one by one, start taking the initiative, the risks, and the lead in forming a more 'responsible' state --- and soon. How can that vote be best invested? Are this many bureaucrats a wise investment? What kind of returns on our investment can scads of administrators provide? What, exactly, needs to change? Great changes really do "begin at the dinner table". A lot of constructive conversations are now taking place. Previously ignorant Californians are now asking questions about our political structure, and what they can do to help turn it around for good. Hope is NOT lost --- it is beginning to sprout.