Legislature returns for last month

07 Aug, 2014 by John Seiler

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“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session,” Mark Twain supposedly said.

That certainly is true in California, where the last month of the legislative session, which we’re now in, always sees a frenzy of bill passing — meaning few legislators have read the most important bills.

Two items:

1. What to do with a water bond to fight the drought? Currently, Proposition 43 is on the ballot, with $11.1 billion in new spending, most pork. Gov. Jerry Brown instead has proposed a $6 billion bond, with less pork and $2 billion for reservoirs. Both include a lot of environmentalist spending.

As we have seen recently, bonds are what I long have called “delayed tax increases.” All the water, parks and stem-cell research bonds passed in the previous decade ran up the payback costs, loading up extra spending in the general-fund budget. That’s the real reason Proposition 30, $6 billion in tax increases, was put on the ballot by Brown and passed by voters in 2012.

There’s no consideration for a pay-as-you-go system that would build dams and reservoirs from current funds, cutting waste in other areas to pay for it.

2. On the positive side, AB69, by Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, would delay the cap-and-trade provisions imposed by AB32 that would raise gasoline costs by more than 50 cents a gallon. Sensibly, Perea is worried about the impact on his poor constituents, many with long commutes, being gouged even more at the pump.

The bill likely will go nowhere because the state’s powerful environmentalists, centered in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, won’t allow changes to AB32. If you’re a digital billionaire, what do you care if the gas price for your Bentley rises 50 cents a gallon?