Free Republic

SACRAMENTO - For the first time since then-private citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger persuaded voters to pass Proposition 49 in 2002, the state will start spending more than $500 million on after-school programs next year. Under Schwarzenegger's proposed 2006-07 budget, the state will spend an additional $428 million on after-school programs under Proposition 49, bringing the total funding for those programs to $550 million. That is new spending required for the first time under Proposition 49 as triggered by an increase in state revenue, although it is not supported by new taxes or other revenue sources. But some critics say the measure...

Then-Gov. Pete Wilson coined, or at least adopted, the phrase "autopilot spending" in the early 1990s as he struggled to close an immense state budget gap and confronted political and legal barriers that made it nearly impossible to reduce spending even when revenues had plummeted. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has voiced the same complaints, most recently this week when he proposed a budget for the 2006-07 fiscal year. But an exchange with reporters also underscored that while Schwarzenegger complains about automatic spending, he's also an ardent advocate of it. At one point, he renewed his pitch for gaining unilateral authority to...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the 2005-06 budget yesterday amid an orgy of self-congratulation among California's leaders, who were proud to miss the constitutional deadline of June 15 by a few weeks instead of the usual few months. Unfortunately, while the relatively quick agreement on the budget is welcome, the $117.5 billion spending plan is anything but. If the stakes weren't so high, the Sacramento types' celebration of their new comity would seem like, well, comedy. Consider the points raised by Sen. Tom McClintock, as ever the skunk at the Capitol picnic: The 2004-05 budget had a gap of only $2...