All,
There are few subjects that I can talk to ad nauseam but one is the California state education budget and in second place is the California state budget in general.
There should be NO bailout by the American taxpayers to fill a huge multi-billion dollar hole created by a broken California budget process and a dysfunctional state government.
Much has been said about the fact that California is one of a handful of states that requires 2/3 majority to pass a budget. Some claim this is the root of the problem. BUNK!
What is not said is that California is also one of a handful of states that has its elected officials get on a plane to Fantasy Expenditure Island each year when it passes the budget only to have it crash, all too often of late, on the Rocks of Real Revenues during the return trip.
I fully support a simple majority to pass a budget in the legislature but IF AND ONLY IF they permanently cancel the flights to Fantasy Expenditure Island. In other words, the budget must to be rigidly tethered to revenues.
This can be achieved by having the budget process BEGIN with a hard statutory revenue projection that caps expenditures for the Governor and the Legislature.
This can be formulated by the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office or the Department of Finance or perhaps some reputable non-partisan committee that includes these offices.
During the budgeting process it may be prudent to allow for well-constrained revisions of the cap based upon revenue changes as reported by the formulating office/committee.
In the future, the "rainy day" fund that is now in place (but empty) can be used to get California through extreme/ difficult fiscal situations.
But that discussion has nothing to do with socking it to the taxpayers in the other 49 states by making them the enablers of California's irresponsible behavior.
We Californians created this mess all by our lonesome and we need to fix it ourselves. It won't be any fun but it is the only path to curing the disease.
Happy holidays from here in sunny and broke California!
Mike
