WASHINGTON -- California the sunny incubator of Americas future has relished its role as a leading indicator of political trends. Tuesday it became what it thinks it should be the center of attention but not in the way it wants to be.
Its voters at last sensible rejected by an average of 65 percent five of six propositions. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the post-partisan Republican and the partisan Democrats who control the Legislature promoted the propositions as efficient for and essential to eliminating the states budget deficit which will now be $21 billion.
So California may become the next target for the Obama administration whose dependency agenda involves seizing every opportunity to break things -- banks insurance and automobile companies etc. -- to the saddle of its supervision.
The Orange County Register -- if but one newspaper survives todays leveling winds may it be this one -- made the case for rejecting all six propositions: 1A would have created an illusory spending cap that could be easily circumvented by raising taxes -- and the ballot language did not mention that 1A would have meant a $16 billion two-year extension of some of Februarys huge tax increases. Proposition 1B promised the public school lobby $9 billion effectively bribing them to support 1A which the California Teachers Association did. Proposition 1C combined two of the worst practices responsible for the states dysfunction rosy revenue projections and borrowing: It would have authorized borrowing from (hypothetical) increases in state lottery revenues. Proposition 1D one more hide-the-pea fiscal deception would have transferred to the general fund -- and much of it on to public employees -- revenues raised for childrens programs. Proposition 1E would have done the same for revenues raised for mental health services.
Proposition 1F passed by 73.9 percent denies pay raises to legislators when the budget is not balanced. The Register opposed this because it gives legislators a personal financial incentive to balance the budget by raising taxes.
Now Californias mostly Democratic political class will petition Washington for a bailout to nourish the public sector that is suffocating the states dwindling -- and departing -- private sector. The Obama administration which rewarded the United Auto Workers by giving it considerable control over two companies it helped reduce to commercial rubble will serve the interests of Californias unionized public employees and others largely responsible for reducing the state to mendicancy.
These factions will flourish if the state becomes a federal poodle on a short leash held by the president. He might make aid conditional on the state doing things that California Democrats and their union allies would love to be compelled to do: eliminate the requirements of two-thirds majorities of both houses of the Legislature to raise taxes and pass budgets and repeal Proposition 13 which voters passed in 1978 to limit property taxes. These changes would enable the Legislature (job approval: 14 percent) to siphon away an ever-larger share of taxpayers wealth and transfer it to public employees. Such as prison guards whose potent union is one reason Californias cost-per-inmate (about $49000) is twice the national average.
Californias voters are complicit in their states collapse. They elect and re-elect the legislators off whom public employees unions batten. Also voters have promiscuously used their states plebiscitary devices to control and fatten the budget. Last November as the dark fiscal clouds lowered they authorized $9.95 billion more in debt as a down payment on a perhaps $75 billion high-speed rail project linking San Francisco and Los Angeles -- a delight California cannot afford.
In a surreal attempt to terrify voters into supporting the propositions Schwarzenegger (job approval: 33 percent) threatened to do something sensible: sell such state assets as San Quentin prison which sits on prime ocean-view real estate. But Californians should now pay a real price in realism about ways and means for Schwarzeneggers wasted years. His governance-by-attention-deficit-disorder has involved flitting from one trendy irrelevance (e.g. stem cell research) to another (e.g. cooling the planet) while the state has sagged. Fittingly he was in Washington as his shambolic legacy was being defined by Tuesdays defeat.
He was at the White House applauding the Obama administrations imposition of severe fuel efficiency standards on a dependent automobile industry that at least has a proven aptitude for its new task of building cars Americans will not like. Standing far from Tuesdays repudiation in the shadow of the president who may soon effectively be Californias governor Schwarzenegger was the administrations dependency agenda writ small.
George F. Will is a 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner whose columns are syndicated in more than 400 magazines and newspapers worldwide.
WASHINGTON -- California the sunny incubator of Americas future has relished its role as a leading indicator of political trends. Tuesday it became what it thinks it should be the center of attention but not in the way it wants to be.
Its voters at last sensible rejected by an average of 65 percent five of six propositions. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the post-partisan Republican and the partisan Democrats who control the Legislature promoted the propositions as efficient for and essential to eliminating the states budget deficit which will now be $21 billion.
So California may become the next target for the Obama administration whose dependency agenda involves seizing every opportunity to break things -- banks insurance and automobile companies etc. -- to the saddle of its supervision.
The Orange County Register -- if but one newspaper survives todays leveling winds may it be this one -- made the case for rejecting all six propositions: 1A would have created an illusory spending cap that could be easily circumvented by raising taxes -- and the ballot language did not mention that 1A would have meant a $16 billion two-year extension of some of Februarys huge tax increases. Proposition 1B promised the public school lobby $9 billion effectively bribing them to support 1A which the California Teachers Association did. Proposition 1C combined two of the worst practices responsible for the states dysfunction rosy revenue projections and borrowing: It would have authorized borrowing from (hypothetical) increases in state lottery revenues. Proposition 1D one more hide-the-pea fiscal deception would have transferred to the general fund -- and much of it on to public employees -- revenues raised for childrens programs. Proposition 1E would have done the same for revenues raised for mental health services.
Proposition 1F passed by 73.9 percent denies pay raises to legislators when the budget is not balanced. The Register opposed this because it gives legislators a personal financial incentive to balance the budget by raising taxes.
Now Californias mostly Democratic political class will petition Washington for a bailout to nourish the public sector that is suffocating the states dwindling -- and departing -- private sector. The Obama administration which rewarded the United Auto Workers by giving it considerable control over two companies it helped reduce to commercial rubble will serve the interests of Californias unionized public employees and others largely responsible for reducing the state to mendicancy.
These factions will flourish if the state becomes a federal poodle on a short leash held by the president. He might make aid conditional on the state doing things that California Democrats and their union allies would love to be compelled to do: eliminate the requirements of two-thirds majorities of both houses of the Legislature to raise taxes and pass budgets and repeal Proposition 13 which voters passed in 1978 to limit property taxes. These changes would enable the Legislature (job approval: 14 percent) to siphon away an ever-larger share of taxpayers wealth and transfer it to public employees. Such as prison guards whose potent union is one reason Californias cost-per-inmate (about $49000) is twice the national average.
Californias voters are complicit in their states collapse. They elect and re-elect the legislators off whom public employees unions batten. Also voters have promiscuously used their states plebiscitary devices to control and fatten the budget. Last November as the dark fiscal clouds lowered they authorized $9.95 billion more in debt as a down payment on a perhaps $75 billion high-speed rail project linking San Francisco and Los Angeles -- a delight California cannot afford.
In a surreal attempt to terrify voters into supporting the propositions Schwarzenegger (job approval: 33 percent) threatened to do something sensible: sell such state assets as San Quentin prison which sits on prime ocean-view real estate. But Californians should now pay a real price in realism about ways and means for Schwarzeneggers wasted years. His governance-by-attention-deficit-disorder has involved flitting from one trendy irrelevance (e.g. stem cell research) to another (e.g. cooling the planet) while the state has sagged. Fittingly he was in Washington as his shambolic legacy was being defined by Tuesdays defeat.
He was at the White House applauding the Obama administrations imposition of severe fuel efficiency standards on a dependent automobile industry that at least has a proven aptitude for its new task of building cars Americans will not like. Standing far from Tuesdays repudiation in the shadow of the president who may soon effectively be Californias governor Schwarzenegger was the administrations dependency agenda writ small.
George F. Will is a 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner whose columns are syndicated in more than 400 magazines and newspapers worldwide.
