The California Budget, the Costs of a Civil Society, and Myths Republican Legislators Would Have You Believe

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Robert Cruickshank

Here in the dog days of April, as the state awaits the governor's May Revise, frustration seems to be setting in over the budget. The real political battles will begin in earnest after the May Revise, but the jockeying for position has been going on for some time, including in the state's media. Unsurprisingly, the media wants to spin the budget crisis as a failure of all Sacramento politicians, when in fact the current impasse is the responsibility of one group alone: the Republicans.

As an article in yesterday's Sac Bee would have us believe, there is "scant support for budget changes." But a deeper look shows that while Democrats have already proposed budget fixes, such as closing the yacht loophole and creating an oil severance tax (as exists in nearly every other state), it is the Republicans alone that have blocked meaningful budget action.

And why have they done so? Republicans want us to believe that any revenue solution is economically damaging. From the Bee:

“However, Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the GOP's incoming leader, said the state should not take away credits at a time when the economy is struggling.

“Other ideas that have yet to gain traction would raise income taxes on high-wage earners or amend Proposition 13 to assess businesses in the same way as residential property. The latter, known as "split-roll" property tax, would require that commercial and industrial properties be reassessed more regularly, bringing the state an estimated $3 billion annually.

“Cogdill dismissed all as non-starters.

“"We should help the general fund by stimulating the economy and be a more beneficial partner with industry, rather than stifling them," Cogdill said.”

But whose economy is stimulated by revenue cuts? Who actually sees this so-called economic growth? And who suffers from the spending cuts that are forced by the revenue cuts? A closer look at the overall situation shows that the Republicans' claims are nonsense. Tax cuts provide economic growth for a wealthy few, but cause economic distress for pretty much everyone else - especially when those tax cuts come at the expense of education.

Earlier this week I discussed Steve Lopez' extraordinary column in the LA Times about how his daughter's school has asked parents to fundraise to keep teachers on salary. The column sparked a dramatic reader response, which Lopez discusses in Sunday’s column: