California Does Thelma and Louise

I lived in Southern California, Claremont by Pomona to be specific, for about ten years. Being in Grad School, it never felt quite like home. But my children were born there, and I think that entitles me to style myself an expatriate.

So there is a little bit of sadness mixed in with schadenfreude, as I contemplate the wreck that California has become. The state now faces a $21 billion deficit, which used to sound like a lot before Barack Obama was elected President. For California it is a lot because, unlike Barack, Arnold can't print money to fill up fiscal canyons.

So Arnold tried a second time to fix California by a series of budget initiatives, submitted to the voters. This in itself is a sign of political dysfunction. California has a state legislature, and it is the job of state legislatures to balance budgets and on occasion reform the institutions of government. But California also has a very strong initiative process, by which interested parties can place legislation on the ballot for the people to enact or reject. The best thing I have read on this comes from Bill Maher.

It's not Arnold's fault that California has a worse credit rating than Louisiana, a state that's half underwater and half in the bag. You see, our state is designed to be ungovernable because we govern by ballot initiative, and we only write two kinds of them: "Spend money on things I like" and "Don't raise my taxes." More money for teachers and firefighters? Check "yes"! High-speed rail? "Cooool!" Drug treatment for former child actors? "Sure, why not?" But don't even think of taxing me for any of it.

When this sort of thing goes on for long enough, it wraps the legislature up in a straight jacket: it can neither cut spending (too many popularly ratified constitutional amendments for that), nor raise revenues (remember Prop. 13?) And of course, every great and expensive program, and every tax cut, has partisans in the legislature as well.

So Governor Schwarzenegger had no other option but to go to the very voters who helped create the problem and ask them to help him fix it. They didn't say no. They said "Hell no." All of the initiatives that included tax increases went down to defeat on Tuesday. The one initiative that passed bars an increase in salaries for public officials while the state budget is in deficit. That probably means no raises for the entire state bureaucracy until the year 3000. I wonder how that will work out.

The Governor is about to be forced to cut everything he can legally cut, no matter what the human cost. He is also going to ask the Federal Government to guarantee loans to California to keep it afloat. Well, that just puts the Golden State in the same position as Chrysler.

President Obama likes to talk about responsible government. But there is this story from the LA Times:

The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.

Houston, we have a problem.

Comments

[Wayne Fiebick]

Ken, I am the opposite, I moved to Cal from South Dakota in 1982. I find the blame the voters for the ballot resolution a little erroneous. On any given ballot, about half of the propositions are placed there by the legislature. You call that "passing the buck" for unpopular measures and then blame the voters if it passes. Other ballot measures are brought by politcal groups to either promoted their pet projects/issues or to counter some other groups ballot proposition. I can't remember any proposition that was truly brought forward by the voters. (Prop 11 before my time)

[Timothy Fountain]

Appreciated the post, Ken. I was born in SoCal and spent 40 years there. But Wayne's comment has merit and is the view of the major paper in San Diego:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/22/lz1ed22bottom214952-dont-blame-voters/
Anyway, am sad to see a once "golden" state turn into such a mess. L.A. is pretty well on as a Third World hell hole - overcrowded, infrastructure stressed or broken, gang violence among the worst in the world, enclaves of gaudy oppulence looming over poverty stricken, gang infested turfs, etc.

[KB]

Wayne and Timothy:

Thanks for the comments. I don't doubt for a moment that the legislature is up to its elbows in responsibility, and I know well that most initiatives originate in interest groups. However, whatever their origin, they are decided on by the voters. California is a democracy, if a dysfunctional one. That means the voters have to shoulder the ultimate responsibility for everything their government does.

[Timothy Fountain]

Ken - I would agree with your description of voters wanting all the services but none of the bills. I think that's more widespread than just CA (it is the way of my Baby Boom generation), but what you describe is certainly in the mix in CA. NIMBY (not in my backyard) problems for locating public facilities have been one symptom of this.

[KB]

Thanks again, Tim.

I emphatically agree with you that voters "wanting all of the services but none of the bills" is not a problem confined to California. I note that this is one of the basic functions of representative democracy: legislators have to produce a whole package of bills, and have to figure out how to pay for them. By contrast, when voters are presented with a proposition, they just have to say whether they like this one idea or not, without considering how it will affect the rest of the government or the economy.

Keep reading and posting, if you have time. I especially appreciate reasonable commentary.

[Miranda]

It is hard not to wonder if this has broader implications. Many Republicans have begun leaning toward libertarianism lately. If I understand it correctly, they believe that the federal government has become too intrusive and that states and individuals ought to have more freedom. But if we had more freedom, would we end up
doing as a country what California has done as a state?

[KB]

Miranda:

That's a very good point. State governments can be just as inclined to irresponsible fiscal policy as the Federal Government. California is the poster child. But, thanks be to God and James Madison, states can't print money. Nor do they have the same ability to run up debt as the Fed. California wants a Federal bailout. President Obama would like to give it one, I am guessing, as he has yet to see a bailout he doesn't like. I am also guessing that one isn't coming. State's rights won't get the U.S. out of its mess, but it might get California out of its mess, eventually.