Posted on 09/20/2006 3:25:07 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Politics: Two policy groups say plan would increase state's debt
SACRAMENTO - Two nonpartisan policy groups on Tuesday said there are major problems with the $37.3 billion public works package that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature put on the November ballot, representing the first opposition to the plan by an organized group.
The Reason Foundation, a nonprofit libertarian think tank based in Los Angeles, and the Performance Institute, a San Diego-based for-profit that describes itself as nonpartisan and dedicated to improving government performance, said the bonds would dangerously increase the state's debt load without providing clear benefits to residents.
According to a Reason Foundation analysis, more than half the bond money would go toward funding ongoing programs and not to new roads, schools, housing and other infrastructure.
The bonds "deliver too little infrastructure at too high a cost, at a time when the state is in no fiscal or management shape to take on the burden of spending the funds wisely and paying the debt costs," the analysis concluded.
The four bonds - Propositions 1B to 1E - would spend $19.9 billion on transportation, $10.4 billion on schools, $4.1 on levees and flood control and $2.9 on affordable housing. This is the largest bond package ever put before California voters.
Carl DeMaio, president of the Performance Institute, which also has an office in Washington, D.C., called on voters to reject all four and to urge lawmakers to devise a more sustainable way to pay for the state's needs.
"California needs infrastructure, but the governor and Legislature should come back with a new set of proposals," DeMaio said. "We can't continue down this road piecemeal."
Paul Hefner, spokesman for the Rebuild California Plan, a coalition supporting the bonds, dismissed the criticism.
"California voters, unlike the Reason Foundation, are reasonable people. They know the economy relies on schools, housing and roads, and the way to keep that running is by investing in infrastructure," he said.
One current Republican lawmaker, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Irvine, and a former Republican legislator, Bill Leonard, who now sits on the Board of Equalization, voiced support for the groups in a conference call with reporters.
During the call, leaders of the groups also packaged their criticism of the bonds with renewed calls for a constitutional amendment to cap the state's debt. Apart from the measures on the November ballot, the state has $37 billion in outstanding bond debt, and voters have authorized another $26.6 billion.
Hefner... as big a whore as his namesake perhaps?
57/58 had a poison pill provision which allowed for no repeat performance. So, now, the German is using another borrowing scheme as a back door. Borrow money to build roads but, instead, maintain current roads to relieve the pressure on the General Fund to allow guess what? More General Fund spending.
It's time that California got rid of this German Pretender. He and his fellow liberals in the legislature are throwing money down rat holes in a effort to remain popular and in power.
You are certainly free to vote anyway you like.
However, the reason I am voting NO on this bond is that California's problem is not the lack of "affordable housing". The problem, as DeVore says, is removing land from development, mandated union wages, environmentalist obstructions, zoning harrassment, NIMBY-ism, and the like. California has plenty of room and plenty of developers who are quite willing to build houses as fast as they can.
However, we have to deal with the social engineers who are determined to make all of us live in shoe box apartments next to train stations, while we take buses to "nearby" jobs.
Sorry, but most of us don't want to live that way. We choose houses with yards for kids and privacy. We all know the types that hang around urban rail/bus stations.
Also, we don't need to be funding housing for "homeless" people. I have worked with "the homeless" for years and most of them we try to serve refuse shelter all the time. Too many "rules", you see.
I'm sorry low income people can't find affordable housing. Jacking up the price of everyone else's housing to subsudize the poor makes no sense...and that's what happens when you have "affordable" set-asides. You might as well have a requirement that every month you give your low income neighbor a check to help pay the "affordable" house payment, because that's what you are paying for when you pay inflated prices to subsidize "affordable" houses within your development.
California has plenty of money. But we have way too many programs for "the poor". Perhaps some of "the poor" should relocate to a cheaper state where housing is reasonable.
And by the way, this "housing" bill has $400,000,000 for PARKS - and we all know who lives in parks.
No thanks.
no more debt, please!!!!!!!
cut spending
Our state legislators simply do not want to ever cut spending. Until they do, vote NO on ANY AND ALL increased spending or debt.
California has plenty of money. SSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Don't say that. Now there are dems all over the state looking under every nook and cranny for that money so that they can spend it before year's end. They even knocked on my door today asking if I'd seen any of the "plenty of money".
I noticed 4 SUVs loaded with boxes and money bags and workers, an armored car and three state police cars and a fire truck in the group acting as escorts. A helicopter hung in the sky overhead, doors open and men hanging out the doors with infrared equipment, binoculars etc.
btw, you mention "the Austrian" and "the German"... one and the same?
Yes I am.
I recommend voting NO on the following bond measures: Props 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E and 84.
I recommend voting NO on the following new tax mechanisms: Props 86, 87, 88 and 89.
I recommend not voting for any on the following liberal, gubernatorial candidates: Angelides, Camejo, Jordan or Schwarzenegger.
Almost. I was thinking European, got Republik confused with Bundesrepublik (don't ask unless you think in German) and published German.
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