Budgeting Reform

By Mark Patlan

Budgeting reform will protect taxpayers and help end the cycle of budget disasters by ensuring that California provides for the bad times by putting aside money in the good times, and lives within its means.

If your teenager keeps wrecking your car, you take away the keys. Sacramento keeps wrecking the budget. We have to take the keys away from Sacramento by fighting tax increases because tax increases only encourage more recklessness. And raising taxes on your neighbor is like giving your neighbor's keys to your reckless teen. What if your neighbor gave your keys to his reckless teen?

Because Sacramento is in denial about its reckless ways, it is time for voters to give it some tough love. Sacramento must first realize that it has a problem. It is time for voters to give Sacramento an intervention. Unfortunately, there is no rehab available for Sacramento, except for budgeting reform.

TAXPAYER PROTECTION
Budgeting reform must protect taxpayers against reckless Sacramento spending by preserving the two-thirds majority required to raise taxes. Likewise, budgeting reform must protect the Proposition 13 limits on property taxes. Sacramento has simply shown itself to be too irresponsible in its spending to remove these taxpayer protections.

BALLOT BOX BUDGETING REFORM
We cannot hold legislators accountable for our mistakes. While California's initiative and referendum systems are an essential tool for California voters, reforming them is critical to budgeting reform. We, the voters, set too many spending priorities and program too much spending through ballot box budgeting to hold legislators accountable.

If we are to hold legislators accountable, we cannot tie their hands in the budgeting process through ballot box budgeting. There are simply too many special interests, including public employee unions, eager to feed at the public trough through ballot box budgeting.

We must reform ballot box budgeting by sunsetting existing ballot box budgeting priorities, and using Constitutional amendment to limit future ballot box budgeting priorities to a limited time period and/or requiring a two-thirds majority approval by voters.

We cannot hold legislators accountable for our mistakes. We must reform ballot box budgeting so that we can hold legislators accountable.

LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS
We must reform the budgeting process to ensure that California lives within its means. Our budgeting process must recognize that the business cycle means that good years are always followed by bad years. This reality means that we cannot overly increase spending in good years because they will certainly be followed by bad years.

We must limit spending increases. I would support a Constitutional amendment limiting spending increases to a specified percentage of prior year spending.

California should manage its money the same way that ordinary people do. I would support a Constitutional amendment, providing that, if surplus money is available in good years, we must first pay off debt, set money aside for bad years, or provide tax relief.

In good years, when there is a surplus where revenues exceed spending, we should first pay off debt, just as ordinary people do. If there is no debt, we should set money aside in a "rainy day" fund, up to a limit, in order to provide for bad years. If the set aside limit is reached, we should provide refunds to taxpayers or otherwise provide tax relief, prorated on the basis of income tax paid.