Posted on 03/06/2005 10:09:58 PM PST by goldstategop
The state treasury raked in $5 billion extra this year, state officials say, but because of what Finance Director Tom Campbell calls "autopilot spending," we must pay out $10 billion extra -- $5 billion more than we got.
Special interest groups say much of it can't be helped -- it's for the "poor." For years, the Legislature has been busy shifting the earnings of one group of Californians into the pockets of another. That's why California is both a high tax state and a constant magnet for low-income newcomers, as recorded by the U.S. Census.
First, we hand out goodies to the middle class. A semi-retired person over 65 who makes up to $38,000 gets rent "assistance." A person earning $35,000 with a home worth up to $175,000 gets property tax "assistance."
Such extras help quiet down complaints about the exploding welfare state. Yet few California voters know what they're really paying for.
One "entitlement" is the $11,500 spent annually by taxpayers on each person who is developmentally disabled and on each young child deemed potentially "at risk" of becoming disabled. A 1985 lawsuit made California the only U.S. state where this is an "entitlement." Entitlements can't be denied, no matter how many people qualify or how broke the state is. So the Legislature forces taxpayers to cover every "needed" service. Nobody says "no." So this year taxpayers will spend $2.3 billion via California's general fund on just 200,000 people -- triple the cost from 1999.
How about welfare checks? In California, we pay out the highest amount of the 10 big states. President Bill Clinton's 1996 bipartisan welfare reforms are moving millions of people into jobs in 20 key states. But California's pigheaded Legislature decided our residents should be able to stay on welfare longer than five years. It also foolishly discouraged job seeking by adding cost-of-living raises to the welfare checks, the only state to do so. Better minds begged the Legislature not to water down Clinton's reforms. They lost. Today, after an initial drop, California is no longer reducing its welfare rolls. Recipients stand at 495,000, costing $6 billion a year.
Finance chief Tom Campbell, a socially liberal Republican who was dean of UC Berkeley's business school, recently told me, "Whatever the program, we are often the most generous state in the nation, or very close to it."
The Legislature stridently resists change. Campbell notes, "It's extremely difficult for the Legislature to take on these formulas one by one, because they weren't approved by accident. These formulas are a result of a political system in which each program, each [entitlement], has a very active, very effective constituency. "Quite simply, legislators are terrified of angering powerful welfare constituencies, while the media help fuel ignorance about what's been going on.
One pundit, angry at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent proposed trims to Medi- Cal, complained that the cuts are aimed at "programs whose beneficiaries are least able to speak up for themselves."
It's a common media device to utilize the image of the voiceless poor. But in Sacramento, it's nonsense.
To the contrary, social welfare advocates enjoy the most powerful lobby of all -- public unions that push chronic growth in social welfare. Such growth means more programs, government hiring and bigger union fiefdoms.
The fact that the public doesn't know this, and that some media don't explain it, is a bit scary.
Joel Kotkin, senior fellow with Pepperdine University's Institute for Public Policy, recently studied inept economic decisions made by California politicians. Kotkin tells me, "The exception is if the California Legislature says 'no' to welfare expansion demands.
Unions and welfare groups are linked at the hip, and the idiots in the Legislature throw money at them, not grasping whether it helps or hurts."
Medi-Cal is the Cadillac of health-care welfare, covering 6.7 million poor and non-poor Californians. An incredible one-sixth of the state enjoys an array of freebies pointed out by Campbell: free acupuncture, free chiropractic, free special rehab, free hospice care -- popular services that many taxpayers can get only through premium health coverage. Roughly 40 percent of all California births are paid by Medi-Cal. Total costs have naturally exploded since 2000, by 72 percent, to about $12.9 billion this year.
To drum up enough cash, the Legislature has abandoned its fundamental responsibility to maintain California's infrastructure. Today, a tiny budget goes to roads and so on, while roughly one-fifth of the budget goes to social welfare. Thirty years ago, that formula was exactly flip-flopped.
I'll be fascinated to see if Campbell and Schwarzenegger can get voters to agree to across-the-board controls on this autopilot budget spending. That issue seems headed for the ballot in November. Meanwhile, like millions of Californians, I'll have to check out the state programs. I think I might qualify.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
It's one thing to blame the legislature, it's quite another to act as an enabler.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
His "trying" is about getting the same goodies for less money so he doesn't have to take the heat for real cuts.
CLINTON'S REFORMS?
If I remember correctly, the sinkmeister FOUGHT tooth and nail against ANY and ALL welfare reform.
Then again, I could be mistaken, but I somehow doubt it. What a pathetic attempt to credit the impotus with one of the accomplishments of Newt Gingrich and the freshmen Republicans!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
The biggest sinkhole in the state are the schools. The schools are liberal principalities and education is the number one liberal issue. Funny how that works...
Public assistance (In the form of a government backed and organized low-interest loan) is available to residents in Santa Clara county whose incomes are below $113K per year. Danny Glover starred in a high production quality video promoting it.
Who gives a crap whether the Legislature likes the budget or not? Arnold is responsible to submit what he thinks is necessary within the constraints of the law. No matter what he does the Legislature will blow it. Ever heard of a line item veto? Apparently Arnold hasn't.
The rest of your rant is a pile of excuses.
Davy Crockett's famous story: NOT YOURS TO GIVE
http://www.house.gov/paul/nytg.htm
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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