Mar 05 2009
When you have to choose between bad and worst
There are situations in life when you have to choose between a bad choice and a choice that is even worse. That is the situation with the ballot measures in the May 19th special election in California.
There is a measure - 1A - that has the first (and last) meaningful budget reform California will see. It has a spending cap - of sorts - and the requirement that a certain amount of income goes into a “rainy day” fund. It also makes the sales tax increase and personal income tax surcharge last for a longer amount of time.
It isn’t a perfect measure. The spending cap isn’t great, but it is the best Californians are going to see. It is a sad state of affairs when the Legislature cannot legislate important measures and instead puts them up for a vote of the people. The fact that the Legislature cannot disipline itself enough to spend less than or equal to what California recieves in revenue is a sorry state of affairs. It means the people we are electing are not acting as our trustees but are acting in their own, or their party’s, self-interest. Seeing as how there is no fiscal discipline in the Legislature, this spending cap is the best we are going to get to be assured that spending won’t go out of control - and taxes won’t go out of control with it.
The keeping of the extra taxes and surcharges is a negative aspect of this measure that people are just going to have to deal with. The extra few years on the measure is enough that most people who voted to place the measure on the ballot won’t be in the same office when the taxes end and the revenues decrease. It also hurts people and businesses that need to make money. Instead of helping escape the recession, the extra taxes and surcharges simply add more pressures to already lean family budgets.
But this is the best we, as Californians, are going to get. So let’s vote for it, and swallow the bitter extended tax pill. It will prevent (hopefully) the need for extended taxes in the future.
