California Meltdown: When in doubt, Blame the Voters!

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By rejecting the complex Sacramento budget settlement, Californians have brought about an earthquake of national significance as has not been seen since the passage of Proposition 13 over thirty years ago. Once again, California voters handed politicians something they fear more than anything else, constraints on the ability to raise taxes and raid revenues for their pet interests.

Some, like long time Los Angeles Times statehouse reporter George Skelton thinks it’s the voters’ fault, as he suggested in his recent op-ed. The problem, we are told, lies with voters. The state’s massive fiscal crisis, which I and others warned was coming, was apparently unforecastable to California politicians and their enablers, like Skelton.

Blame the voters will become a large part of the national and local media spin. It is not the first time. Consider Proposition 13. The problems that led up to Prop 13 were years in the making, and they were well understood. Inflation and rising home prices were increasing taxes beyond what citizens were prepared to pay. Sacramento tried several times to address the problem, but then as now, politicians couldn’t make hard decisions. The entrenched interests, notably the public employee unions, would not hear of anything that might shrink state revenues.

Contrary to some versions of history, Proposition 13 was not backed by oil companies, land developers and other business interests. In fact, most opposed it.

Proposition 13 backers were outmanned, outspent and certainly without much media support. The measure was passed because after years of incompetence in Sacramento, California voters, like Medieval peasants, grabbed their pitchforks and torches and stormed the castle. They passed Prop 13.

Some interpret this story as showing voter ignorance and fickleness. I interpret it as showing that California voters are patient, but only to a point. Once they have reached a certain point, California voters take matters into their own hands. The results are invariably far more onerous for the state than if the political class had effectively faced the issue. Part of the reason for this is because the voters have fewer tools available to them. Legislatures and governors may have scalpels, voters have only axes.

Gray Davis was the victim of a similar uprising. He took the fall for a government that had failed. Arnold was going to be different. He would be the Governator. He won election promising mortal combat with special interests. In 2005, he tried to change things but was outmaneuvered by his union-backed opponents. After losing round one, he became Gray Davis but without his predecessor’s grasp of the essentials of government. As the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters has pointed out, hubris and ignorance make a deadly combination.

Now, we have a budget crisis, and California voters are unwilling to give Sacramento a pass. Why?

Maybe they don’t think they are getting value for their increased investment in government. California spent about $2,173 per resident (2000 dollars) in the 1997-1988 budget. The 2007-2008 budget spends about $2,738 (2000 dollars) per resident. That represents a 26 percent increase in real (inflation adjusted) per-capita spending in ten years.

What have California voters purchased with their 26 percent increase in government spending? Are the roads 26 percent better? Are schools 26 percent better? What is 26 percent better?

That is Sacramento’s problem. It is very hard to identify what good that this increase in spending has purchased. If it has been a good investment, why haven’t California’s leaders convinced the voters?

Maybe you can make a case that we are 26 percent better off; maybe not. I don’t know, but then I haven’t seen a strong effort to make the case. Instead, we get predictions of doom. We’ll cut back on teachers. We’ll let prisoners out of jail. Skelton says “And, oh yes, the elderly poor, blind and disabled – welfare moms and children's healthcare? They'll take the biggest hits, as usual.”

The problem with predictions of doom is that they don’t ring true, or they sound as if the political leaders will punish voters for forcing the leaders to face a budget constraint. Voters can remember 1997-1998. California had teachers. Prisoners were in jail. Healthcare was provided for those with the least resources. If California had these essential services then, and the State is spending 26 percent more now, why cut those essential services now?

That is the question the California’s leaders have to answer soon. Today Sacramento faces a crisis. The governor and the legislature will have to deal with a real binding budget constraint, and how they choose to deal with that constraint will make a huge difference. They could show leadership. They could make difficult choices. They could stand up to the special interests that will spare no effort to punish them.

They may not. They may try to punish voters by cutting essential services. They may try even more Enron-style accounting tricks. They may sell assets or use federal money to push the problem to future legislators and governors. They may make poor choices. They may avoid cutting entitlements and public employee pensions, the real source of the state’s fiscal distress.

We are heading towards a convulsion, not only here in California but in a host of high-tax, high-regulation states now controlled by their own employees. This includes New York, Illinois, and New Jersey for starters. In the age of Obama, with its celebration of bigger government, this suggests perhaps a whiff of a counter-revolution.

Bill Watkins, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Economic Forecast Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also a former economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington D.C. in the Monetary Affairs Division.



















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What a Waste!

Mr. Watkins has erudition and attitude to spare, but he's missed the most important thing about this whole incident.

People want something for nothing. They like services, they like big government, they just don't want to pay for it.

Howard Jarvis offered people the illusion of something for nothing, and the whole country's been addle-brained ever since.

Individuals want the programs that serve them kept, and the ones they don't need cut. No one is immune; the principle also extends to the rich and the super-rich.

However, the population is diverse enough that sooner or later, every bunion gets trod upon. Hence the refusal to pay for someone else's necessities.

In that respect, blame the voters is exactly right.