How CA GOP can have fun with the budget, Democrats

Jan. 31, 2013

By John Seiler

I keep giving Republicans ideas so they can have some fun with Democrats. So far, the GOP remains about as fun-loving as teetotaler at a Sonora wine-tasting party.

But here’s an idea. Proposition 30 just passed and is raising $6 billion in new taxes. As you’ll recall, in the ads last fall the money was advertised as going entirely to education. And Gov. Jerry Brown’s  new budget proposal even says, “Proposition 30, the Governor’s Initiative, was premised on the need to reinvest in education.” (For Democrats, tax increases always are “investment.”)

But in that budget proposal, Brown gives just $2.7 billion to K-14 education, just $150 million to Cal State and $250 million to the University of California. Total: $3.1 billion to education.

That leaves $2.9 billion for the general fund, meaning pensions.

Now here’s where Republicans can have some fun. Put an initiative on the November 2014 ballot that allocates all the Prop. 30 funds to education! Make it $5 billion to K-14 and $1 billion to Cal State and UC.

Is that “ballot-box budgeting,” which I always have attacked because it distorts the budget? Yes, but so is Prop. 30. So, it’s just reallocating what’s already been budgeted at the ballot box.

And here’s the best part: The Democrat’s main interest groups, the teachers’ unions, will have to support it “for the children.” Yet the initiative also would deny money to the government-workers’ pensions, forcing an earlier date that reforms must be made.

Republicans: If you can’t beat Democrats, at least have fun causing division and chaos in their ranks.