Taxifornia's Runaway Spending Continues!

Please allow me share some very alarming, and quite infuriating numbers with you.

The Taxifornia Legislative Analyst's report about fiscal outlook for 2010 is out, and while we all know that we are in a bad spot, even this year's numbers are a bit of a surprise.

The Great State of Taxifornia is set to spend 14.5% more in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's right...a spending increase of 14.5% in the midst of the worst economic crisis in 100 years.

Now, mind you, that some of this increase is because the fudging of numbers that the Taxinator and the Taxislature were able to pull off in 2009 is not repeatable this year, and Federal Stimulus money for 2009 is not being sent to Taxifornia again this year, but there still is an actual substantial spending increase as well.

Would you not agree that the state should be spending less money this year than last year? That would make sense, wouldn't it? Not in Democrat-land where you need to spend money to make money, Lou. And don't try to remind me that the Taxinator is a Republican because we've already had that discussion!

So, this year, while the state continues to legally borrowing money from your paycheck without your permission, there will, however, be no borrowing from cities, no stealing from development agencies, and so shifting of the last state employee payroll pay date for the year to next year because it was just a day later.

Here are some further comments on this issue from State Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard:

To put this into perspective, consider these figures distilled in a recent issue of Political Pulse: In 1990-91 the state spent $1,350 per person. By the current fiscal year, that was up to $2,644 per person. Have you seen double the benefit from the state since 1990? Political Pulse says that if the state had limited its spending in those years to the average Consumer Price Index and population growth, our current surplus would be in the neighborhood of $15 billion. Instead, that figure represents just a portion of our deficit.

I came across some other numbers that help explain how such an insane situation developed. According to my estimates, only about 34% of California residents pay income taxes. So if you look at your neighbors on either side of you, only one of you actually paid into the state coffers via income tax. Unbelievably, there are 4.4 million MORE people registered to vote than people who paid income taxes. Now, not all of those registered actually cast ballots, but it provides insight into the dynamic that is crippling our state. When there are more takers than givers, the system cannot work and California's system is not working in many, many ways.

Some people look at these numbers and facts and lament that there is nothing to do but wait for the inevitable collapse of the state. But that is not only extremely unlikely, it is irresponsible. It is as irresponsible for an individual who cannot pay his current bills to run up all his credit cards figuring that he will "just" declare bankruptcy and be done with it, sticking someone else with his bills. We know that debt service has first call, then education, on all state funds, but to continue to accrue debt is reckless because that debt will be paid even if we shut down every state spending program. We simply must cut spending and programming and services or whatever you want to call the outflow of money. We must stop the budget smoke-and-mirrors that allow one year to look okay while pushing the pain into the next fiscal year. Cut first, cut now.