Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
The State Legislature recently approved Gov. Newsom’s 2020-2021 state budget. It’s nothing new to Republicans that it contains ridiculous items like aid to illegal immigrant families, things that could only be passed in a state with a Democratic supermajority, but this year is especially bad. It’s not just bad for what’s in it, it’s also bad because of what’s not in it—or more specifically, what will never be in it.
The state is facing a serious budget deficit as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but very few programs were cut because the state is banking on aid from none other than the federal government, which is over $26 trillion in debt and climbing. The HEROES Act, which was passed in the House of Representatives and dead on arrival in the Senate, is expected to pick up much of the tab for the programs that the state is refusing to cut. There is only one problem, it won’t pass into law.
The HEROES Act is a partisan Democratic bill which means that it was passed easily through the Democratic House, but it has absolutely no chance of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate. In other words, there is a better chance of President Trump being impeached twice than this bill passing, yet this is what Sacramento Democrats have staked our budget on.
The Assembly is back from recess for a day to formalize the most secretive budget in modern California history. Each year we’ve taken another step down the ladder of transparency. This year we fell off it altogether.
— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) June 26, 2020
The Democrats want to have their cake and eat it too—no deficit without cutting spending. It doesn’t work that way. “We could have made more cuts,” said Phil Ting, Democratic Assemblyman from San Francisco. “We could have had a budget that was better for our bond rating. But we decided that it was more important to ensure that schools remain held harmless, more important to make sure we didn’t cut health care.”
Now, because Democrats were so rigid with the budget, we will have a massive deficit, and they will be unable to sufficiently fund essential services as a result. They refused to make good decisions early, so they will be forced to make poor decisions later. Of course, like every other Democratic failure, it will cost us too.
