Broke - fix it.

[karl]

Brown's only answer

Steve Williams

Jerry Brown went on YouTube Thursday to discuss why he was calling off budget negotiations with legislative Republicans in Sacramento, complaining that he cannot persuade them to put his proposed tax increases on a special June ballot.

Meanwhile, the California Teachers Association is airing a radio ad across the state composed of a litany of layoffs of teachers by California school districts from Sacramento to Los Angeles, and San Diego to Fresno. The CTA warns that such layoffs endanger “the children.” So they do, but the ad is not about “the children,” it’s about preparing the ground for that Brown tax hike proposal.

If the proposal does make it to the ballot, passage will be hyped by dire warnings about reductions in state services, such as cuts in firefighter and law enforcement personnel, teachers, and the like. And you can be sure that millions of dollars will be spent by the various unions extracted from their membership via mandatory dues — including the CTA — to insure passage.

It’s typical of Democrats, of course, to choose tax hikes over spending cuts as the road to financial salvation for state — and local — government. Nowhere do Democrats think spending cuts are an option. They, including Gov. Brown, don’t believe reductions in spending should even be considered. That’s because they believe the well is bottomless, and that resistance to drawing more from the well is simply stubbornness on the part of conservatives.

The governor hoped to reach the constitutional two-thirds vote requirement in the Legislature by getting two Republicans each in the Assembly and Senate to agree to place an extension of 2009’s temporary increases in income, sales and vehicle taxes before voters in return for other concessions. Republicans, bless them, have refused, saying the governor is too tied to labor unions and other interests that oppose meaningful pension, budget and regulatory reform. Who can argue with that? Only lefties.

It should be recalled that statewide, voters rejected tax increases each of the past two years. If the governor or his colleagues in organized labor succeed in collecting enough signatures to qualify another tax proposal for the November ballot — the only option left absent the two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature — we think there’s little doubt voters will send the same message they did in 2009 and 2010: overwhelming rejection.

Meanwhile, the Legislature must now face reality. It still is about $15 billion short of balancing its budget through June 2012. And reality is that lawmakers now are forced to live within their means, like millions of private citizens who don't have the luxury of balancing their personal budgets by adding new taxes for someone else to pay.

We suspect California will learn that its government can operate just fine on $15 billion less than it would like to spend. Thanks to conservatives, we’re about to find out.