Archived: Editorial: State Budget Falling Fast As Voters Asked to Take On More Debt

The news from Sacramento regarding the state budget is not good. Despite months of delays and negotiations, and a host of tricks and trades to balance the budget, we are learning that not only is the budget not balanced, it’s completely out of whack.

As much as $10 billion more than anticipated out of whack to be exact.

This is no surprise to us given the fact that the national economy is in a free fall. But what gets us is that state legislators and the governor did little planning in advance, and chose short term fixes instead of solid long term planning.

The state of California’s dismal financial budget is the reason Eastern Group Publications refused to endorse a majority of the costly measures on the Nov 4 election ballot. While some measures backers claim their proposition will not raise taxes, they fail to spell out that the measure will still raise our debt: Debt that must be paid back and which will tie up revenue for years to come.

Governor Schwarzenegger has told the states’ education officials that he intends to cut the states’ education budget by $2-14 billion, which could prove devastating to local school districts. We’ll have to see where that decision goes.

In addition, the governor wants to hike the states sales tax by one cent, which when added to other local proposed tax hikes, will cut even further into consumers’ wallets that are already taxed by a host of new fees, and higher costs for everything.

We hope that when the state’s voters go to the polls, they keep the state’s, county’s budget and cities’ budget short falls in revenue on their minds.

To see a complete list of EGP’s Ballot Recommendation, go to www.egpnews.com.

Posted October 30, 2008 - Copyright © 2022 Eastern Group Publications, Inc.