April 15 was a day of obligation for California taxpayers, but
the checks made out to the Franchise Tax Board will still leave the
state short by about $8 billion. The schools, health care and
infrastructure that Californians built in the golden era of growth
and optimism face further crippling cuts.
This editorial first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on April 15.
April 15 was a day of obligation for California taxpayers, but the checks made out to the Franchise Tax Board will still leave the state short by about $8 billion. The schools, health care and infrastructure that Californians built in the golden era of growth and optimism face further crippling cuts.
The budget crisis perplexes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in his five years in office has worked to reconcile the two competing California theologies: one based on investment and abundance, which residents long had faith would produce the smartest, healthiest, happiest generation possible; and one embodied in the taxpayers’ revolt, which held that government was the sworn enemy of the very freedom that this state’s sunshine, open roads and vast expanses of land once symbolized.
Schwarzenegger came into office echoing the assertion of government skeptics everywhere that there is enough money to be saved from rooting out waste, fraud and abuse to permit the abundance to continue, without the investment.
But that’s a lazy canard, and Schwarzenegger now acknowledges that the state cannot cut its way to prosperity. Many Democrats, meanwhile, hope that the very real prospect of laying off teachers and closing schools will move Republicans to approve some new tax or fee to pay for education and, by the way, free up other money for those programs that don’t have middle-class constituencies, such as Medi-Cal and foster care.
The discussion is welcome, but it remains far too narrow. An overhaul is past due for California’s entire tax system because tax revenue, and its unpredictability, lie at the center of the state’s perpetual budget floundering. In the post-Proposition 13 era, voters and lawmakers have cobbled together an unwieldy system of fees and funds reserved for one purpose or off-limits for another. One more stopgap special fee might tide schools over for the next year or two, but it would leave the state with an even more unwieldy and inefficient tax system.
This page chooses tax day to launch a broader discussion, to continue at least through California’s holy feast day, June 6 – the 30th anniversary of Proposition 13. The question to be asked in the weeks in between is not just whether taxpayers should pay more, because “taxpayers” are not a single interest group. Who pays too much now and sees too little in return? Who enjoys unearned subsidies? What level of taxation promotes business, and what level drives it out? Did Proposition 13 ruin everything? Nonsense. Is Proposition 13 sacrosanct? Not necessarily. Is the golden California of another era an irrecoverable ideal?
Let’s find out.
