Prop 1A

Rex Babin, cartoonist for the Sacramento Bee, offers up this take on the lack of fiscal discipline of California voters, who love to approve new, extra-budgetary spending at the ballot.

Today's LA Times story by my longtime colleague Evan Halper makes one thing painfully clear. California's Republican legislative leaders, for all their championing of direct democracy and the rule of the people when it comes to subjects such as Prop 13 (property taxes) and Prop 22 (same-sex marriage ban), are prepared to violate all sorts of voter-approved initiatives to get a budget deal and avoid a tax increase.

Halper got his hands on a memo that details what Republicans are talking about. As Halper recounts the memo's contents, the Republican proposals involve "diverting money specifically set aside by voters for local governments, road and other transportation projects, mental health programs and early childhood education." To give a little history, voters set aside money for transportation via ballot initiative with Prop 42 (2002), for local government with Prop 1A (2004), mental health programs with Prop 63 (2004), and early childhood with Prop 10 (1998). For Republicans to want to raid such funds is hypocrisy. To borrow against such funds in the name of opposing tax increases is dishonest. The act of raiding such funds creates a debt for the state that must be paid back. The very act of raiding the funds is thus a tax increase in disguise.