We can afford it. I think we all know the importance of safe roads, secure water, and clean air. And all of these things require building roads, dams and installing pollution control equipment. And they have to be maintained so our quality of life doesn't suffer. What we can't afford is debt that just takes money from one group of people to give to another. We can cut that debt to avoid mortgaging the state's future. So unless we eliminate the current entitlement formulas not even Prop. 76 will change things as fast as people expect. And its not going to restrain spending for a couple of years anyway because of the way the formulas are calculated. Whether it will act as a brake in lean revenue years, no one really knows.
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".) And its not going to restrain spending for a couple of years anyway because of the way the formulas are calculated.These "formulas" only apply to a portion of the state budget. There are many areas were services can be drastically cut to offset the "formulas". State employment can be substantially reduced and entitlements can be eliminated or reduced to federal minimums while the "formulas" are adjusted.
If Schwarzenegger and the legislature continue to insist, to the tune of $40B this budget year alone, that California tax payers continue to house, feed, educate, medicate and incarcerate Mexico's poor then something has got to give. The plan is unsustainable.