Written by Brandon Lee Romo
Those who tuned into Joe Biden’s Congress speech were probably alarmed by the trillions of dollars he outlined towards new federal spending. However, Democrats in the California Legislature seem to want even more of it.
In advance of the Governor’s May Revise budget proposal, Assembly and Senate Democrats recently outlined their respective spending priorities. As the conflicting proposals demonstrate, the two houses are just competing to see who can spend more. California lawmakers currently expect a budget surplus of $15 to $20 billion. Speaker Rendon’s budget adviser, Jason Sisney, tweeted that this may be in addition to Newson’s $15 billion January increase. None of these estimates include the projected $26 billion in stimulus funds that California would receive under Biden.
Senate Democrats claimed they are “embrac(ing) the once in-a-generation opportunity to make bold transformative progress for the people of California,” in their “Build Back Boldly” plan. But what is included in this plan just shows that these Democrats believe progress only means more massive spending increases:
- Between $2 billion and $12 billion towards government-run preschools.
- $20 billion five-year commitment to “reduce homelessness”.
- “$2 billion commitment to address and mitigate the impacts of drought”.
- “expand access to Medi-Cal to all income eligible Californians regardless of immigration status,” (estimated cost of $163 million the first year and $255 million the year after).
- “provide-upfront funding to help the state reach its goal of 1.5 million ZEVs on the road by 2025” through “$175 million per year for three years to support the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program.”
When the final budget takes shape, California is on track to see the biggest one-time and long-term spending increases in recent memory. This is not only unfair to California residents who did not agree to increase their taxes for these measures but completely counterproductive as government-run programs have only shown to produce anything but success. Why would we want the entire state to be run like the DMV?
