The Lack of Vision in Veteran Reporters

In the LA Times today George Skelton, the veteran LA Times political reporter presents three "solutions" for solving the budget mess in Sacramento. He would a) reduce the percentage for adopting budgets and taxes from the current 2/3 to 55%. The taxes requirement would be limited to only those funds which were not above growth in inflation and population. Finally, he would cut off pay and per diem for the Governor and members of the legislature if they did not pass a budget on time.

The 55% rule would reduce the necessary fraction for adopting budget or taxes from the current 54 votes in the Assembly and 27 votes in the Senate to 44 and 22. Ultimately, in today's gerrymandered legislature that would mean the equivalent of a majority vote. The cutoff of compensation has a certain ring to it, but likely what elected officials would do is figure out how to live off their campaign accounts when they were a bit late.

When the 2/3 requirement was adopted, it was done so with a policy intent in mind. It was clear that even with the worst kind of redistricting follies the vote would require some votes from the minority party. That is a pretty clear policy rationale. It may or may not achieve its objective and may or may not create secondary consequences. But what is the rationale for a 55% standard?

Based on our experience with Proposition 4, which limited increases in spending to changes in population and inflation (why those factors is appropriate is also a good question - do family budgets automatically increase with changes in size and compensation?), legislators are infinitely ingenious in evading the standards when they want to. The shenanigans in last year's budget gives a good idea about how non-limiting a proposal like this would be.

What Skelton and other reformers might better spend their time at is coming up with a set of proposals which would inhibit the natural tendency of legislators to be less careful with tax revenues than they are with their own money. But that is a lot harder task.