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Posted on 08/23/2003 10:19:25 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
The following is an issue paper written and researched by Tom and staff. I have pulled and processed the first 2 pages of this 33 page pdf file .. the remaining 31 pages contain 237 specific reductons appropriate to the 1995 timeframe.
The document speaks to the nature of an all-consuming behemoth that our state's govt and bureaucracies has become. It also recommends remedies, most if not all, that could still be implemented at even greater savings to the state and its citizens.
But will these things happen? Do they have a chance of happening?
Remember how addicted folks were to welfare and state programs back then? That addiction has grown even stronger the last few years as more and more programs have been established and allowed to flourish, at the expense of the taxpayer.
I offer this as an example of someone who has been there thru all of this excess in spending and is best prepared to work from the inside out to enact meaningful reforms across the board state govt -wide..
We owe our children that much , at least. :-)
237 specific reductions,, and this is back in 1995.
Keep in mind , this is 8 years ago! I wonder how many are out there today? Better ask Arnie's independent audit team or maybe Steve Peace's 239 audit staff personnel to get right on it, huh?
Tom has been on it for years.
Enjoy!
View the entire pdf at A Citizens' Guide to the State Budget Mess
Contents
Introduction
Legislative, Judicial and Executive
State and Consumer Services
Business, Transportation and Housing
Trade and Commerce
Resources
Environmental Protection
Health and Welfare
Youth and Adult Corrections
Education
General Government
Other Programs
INTRODUCTION
This compendium offers over 217 specific reductions that could be made in the 1995-1996 state budget. Total savings from these proposals amount to more than $11.7 billion, including $1.2 billion in proposals by the Legislative Analyst's Office in 64 items. In compiling this collection, our purpose is to show that there are ample opportunities to reduce spending. It will be said by defenders of many of the items that they are "small amounts" in the context of a $89 billion budget. This is true, but it misses the point. "Small" programs involve real dollars that add up to millions, then tens of millions-all of it spent on unnecessary state activities. To regain control of the budget, unnecessary spending of all kinds must be eliminated. All that is needed is the requisite resolve.
Budget developments in Sacramento and Washington present California policy makers with both the responsibility and the opportunity to begin a long overdue down-sizing of California's inefficient administrative structure and the abolition of obsolete bureaucracies.
The opportunity is obvious. An overwhelming public sentiment for economy in government produced a political sea-change at the polls in 1994, which is now being translated into historic budget reform in Congress. Similarly, California's administration and legislature have moved dramatically away from the days of record-breaking tax increases and unchallenged bureaucratic growth. The obligation Sacramento owes to California's citizens is to use this opportunity for genuine and permanent budgetary downsizing and reform. Contrary to the rosy economic predictions of the Department of Finance's "May Revise," California is still in deep financial difficulty. The state's high tax rates continue to place California at a significant competitive disadvantage with neighboring states, and the increasing ability of commerce to by-pass such obstacles bodes poorly for the future. Furthermore, the administration's tax cutting proposal only rolls back a quarter of the 1991 tax increase which gravely deepened the 1990-1994 recession in California. Finally, bureaucratic bloat seriously reduces the government's ability to provide basic services such as education, law enforcement and transportation.
The Growth Of State Spending
It is an astonishing fact that a government whose budget has quadrupled in 20 years now lacks the funds to educate its children, transport its commerce or lock up its criminals. The paradox is easily explained with a simple calculator and a little basic common sense. Apply these tools to some current spending practices:
Next year, it will cost $69,244 for every student attending the University of California.
It will cost an average of $23,684 to house a prisoner in the Department of Corrections.
OVERVIEW
Savings
- The combined budget cuts in this report will conserve $11.7 billion, or about $1,400 for every family of four in California.
- The savings amount to about 13% of all funds proposed to be spent in the Governor's budget, or 18% of General and Special Funds.
- The proposals would eliminate $725 million in fees on California citizens.
- $350 million would be returned to federal taxpayers.
Reforms
This report identifies 217 budget items which could be reduced or eliminated.
We propose three broad reforms affecting many budget sections:
- Bring the state prevailing wage into conformity with the federal Davis-Bacon standard
- Implement Proposition 187;
- Adopt a 5% across-the-board salary rollback.
112 agencies and commissions are proposed to be abolished, saving $1.7 billion and $725 million in fees.
85 programs with unjustified growth in overhead are identified, and budget freezes or rollbacks are proposed with savings of $4 billion.
10 opportunities for contracting out services are identified, with $350 million in potential savings.
13 operational reforms are proposed, with savings of $4.5 billion.
- It will cost taxpayers $25.12 per hour in wages and benefits for a flagman holding a stop and go sign under the state's prevailing wage regulations.
- Taxpayers will back every classroom of 30 students in this state with $167,790 of public resources, or $5,593 per pupil.
-Next year, taxpayers will buy the average legislator nearly $800 in snacks and meals, and will spend $7,300 each for legislators' luxury car leases.
- Because of lavishly generous contracts for state employees approved in 1992, an average working family now pays $125 more in taxes to fund salary increases granted in the middle of the worst recession this state has experienced in 50 years.
Sadly, these practices are symptomatic of the deeply ingrained habits of the state bureaucracy. They are mere examples of spending that is out of control.
The 1995-96 budget submitted to the legislature in January proposes expenditures of $89.3 billion drawn from all sources: the state's general and special funds, bond funds and federal trust funds. This constitutes $10,891 from the purchasing power of every family of four in California which they pay directly as taxpayers, or indirectly either as consumers through taxes passed along as higher prices, or as employees and investors through taxes passed along as lower wages and earnings. This transfer of purchasing power is not theoretical: the money expropriated for support of the state government is real, it is massive, and ultimately it is paid by the working people who comprise the private sector of the economy.
In the last two years, state general and special fund spending has increased by $3.2 billion, or 6.1 percent, producing a record level of short term borrowing to bridge the gap between revenues and expenditures. In 1995, the administration and legislature face a continuingly sluggish economy combined with the need to retire $4 billion of short term notes carried over from the prior fiscal year.
The Wilson administration has taken dramatic steps to stem the spiraling costs of the state's health and welfare system, and the reforms contained in the Governor's budget are vitally important to continue this progress. The administration has also succeeded in eliminating a few unnecessary or duplicative bureaucracies-no small task considering the institutional resistance to government downsizing. But much remains to be done to get state spending under control.
Click Here to access the remainder of the document
These things won't happen without your help and your vote October 7th.
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Senator McClintock's BRAC Legislation is Approved by the California Senate |
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Senator Tom McClintock
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Date: July 27, 2003
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Publication Type: Press Release
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Measure sets up a Bureaucracy Realignment and Closure Commission to identify, downsize or eliminate obsolete state bureaucracie.
(Sacramento) – Senate Bill 9 by State Senator Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) was approved today by the California State Senate by a vote of 36 to 0. The bill sets up a Bureaucracy Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) to identify, downsize or eliminate obsolete state government bureaucracies. The legislation is modeled after the federal military base realignment and closure commission which successfully closed 90 obsolete military bases, saving $20 billion per year. Senator McClintock’s legislation, SB 9, applies the same mechanism to a similar problem: how to identify, downsize or eliminate obsolete bureaucracies in state government. The difficulty in conducting such a review – and acting upon it – is that every program has a highly motivated constituency that jealously and expertly guards its budget. Faced with the long overdue need to close obsolete military bases, the federal government confronted the same paralysis caused by interest group pressure. Ultimately, Congress broke the gridlock when it took the task of reviewing bases out of the political arena and gave it to an independent panel of management experts that returned a comprehensive recommendation for a single up-or-down vote. SB 9 will empanel an independent commission of management experts to examine state bureaucracies to determine which ones perform obsolete or duplicate services. The plan will then be presented to the Legislature for a single yes or no vote. “I think we all agree that this government could operate a lot more efficiently,” said Senator McClintock. The bill next moves to the California State Assembly. |
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It will cost an average of $23,684 to house a prisoner in the Department of Corrections.
Here is a tax saving idea of my own. Send all the UC students to prison...
I suspect that the rest of the country will probably follow in California's footsteps within a generation. I don't know what California's situation will be then, but I am not optimistic that anything good will come from the present political belief system and culture.
In place of God, we have govt .. in place of principles, we have capitulations..
The Red horde is on our shores and they are kicking our ass and using our own tax money to do it.
He's the the right man for the job of California governor.
Arnold is an empty suit.
As far as being a "conservative", I am willing to make ally with any party that respects a Christian and is working towards frustrating the political ambitions of the Left. The Republican Party is now controlled by "Big Government Conservatives", sometimes called "Neo-Cons", and, although they fail my most important criteria, I can support them as they are useful in slowing down the Left juggernaut. To make myself as clear as possible, I believe it is easy to show using an historical analysis that Mussolini and Hitler were Leftists, as were Richard Nixon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and others, though these men were Leftists of a much less virulent type than the first group.
“Victory Fever” is what the Japanese called it in ww2... there being blinded by early cheap easy successes to the potential of coming disaster in the end
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