{"id":7952,"date":"2022-01-16T12:21:45","date_gmt":"2022-01-16T19:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=7952"},"modified":"2022-01-14T16:28:12","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T23:28:12","slug":"newsoms-mythical-budget-surplus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=7952","title":{"rendered":"Newsom’s Mythical Budget Surplus"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was originally published by California Policy Center<\/a><\/p>\n

Governor Newsom released his proposed budget this week, promising a massive surplus that special-interest groups can’t wait to spend. The problem is there is no actual surplus. California\u2019s state & local governments are shouldering a staggering $1.5 trillion in debt \u2013 50 times the $31 billion surplus\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.\n<\/p>\n

What\u2019s worse is that the state doesn\u2019t actually know how much it owes \u2013 to retired workers, to Wall Street and banks, to healthcare providers. This year\u2019s financial report \u2013 for 2020 \u2013 is already nine months\u00a0late<\/a>, with rumors that it won\u2019t be complete until this summer. And that\u2019s just at the state level. California\u2019s spare cash and rainy-day funds are dwarfed by the mountain of long-term liabilities California governments have accumulated at all levels, from cities and counties to school districts.\n<\/p>\n

Of course, if the stock market drops, or the tax base continues to shrink from the mass exodus of taxpayers and businesses to other states, California\u2019s revenue will decline precipitously, wiping out any mythical “surplus.”<\/p>\n

Beyond fiscal shell games, Newsom\u2019s budget fails to effectively address any of the five-alarm crises facing the state. For starters, California public schools are in shambles after school boards across the state caved to the demands of teachers unions throughout the pandemic. One of the governor\u2019s solutions is predictable: simply raise per-student spending. The other is a remarkable step backward \u2014 decoupling state spending from students altogether.\n<\/p>\n

As the number of school-age children in California continues its seven-year slide \u2014 and as more and more parents find alternatives to union-run public schools \u2014 Newsom\u2019s proposed budget would, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a>\u00a0reports, \u201callow districts to base funding on attendance in the current year, prior year, or the average of that from three prior years \u2014 whichever is greater. The proposal gives school districts \u2018more running room to plan against really shocking declines,\u2019 said Keely Martin Bosler, director of Newsom\u2019s Department of Finance.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In almost any other business, a shocking decline in market share would lead to service innovation and\/or massive cuts in spending \u2014 or bankruptcy. But this is government, and this is California. The financial bailout won\u2019t change the terrifying\u00a0trajectory\u00a0<\/a>of student learning.\n<\/p>\n

Newsom\u2019s \u201cblueprint<\/a>\u201d for addressing the state\u2019s ongoing drought, recurring wildfires, a smash-and-grab crime wave, and a homeless population now exceeding 160,000 is more of the same: throw a lot of good money after bad. He has no realistic plan to save the Golden State from falling further into decline or shielding the coming generation from the impending financial day of reckoning.\n<\/p>\n

Nurses\u2019 union push for single-payer healthcare would double California taxes\u00a0<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

California lawmakers advanced legislation this week to create the nation\u2019s first single-payer healthcare system. On January 6, state Assemblyman Ash Kalra (D-San Jose) unveiled Assembly Bill 1400, crafted by the California Nurses Association (CNA). If approved by the governor, it would create CalCare, a state takeover of California medicine by politicians to whom you wouldn\u2019t \u2013 or shouldn\u2019t \u2013 entrust a hair dryer.\n<\/p>\n

The CNA and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have been making life worse for nurses for years. In 2019, the CNA was the prime mover of legislation to expand state-funded healthcare to undocumented people under 26. That added costs for everybody \u2013 and a flood of new patients without the capacity \u2014 the financial and staffing resources \u2013 to handle them. This year, CNA came back for more, persuading Governor Newsom to include in his budget free healthcare to undocumented people of any age. That will increase demand on every government service provider.\n<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more. Through its control of a low-profile agency called the California Board of Registered Nursing, the CNA has worked aggressively to cap student enrollment in California\u2019s private nursing programs. Stomping on successful private nursing schools may satisfy the union\u2019s lust for class war, but it has also created a years-long nursing shortage in California.\n<\/p>\n

CNA predicts that running CalCare each year will cost Californians two times the state\u2019s current entire budget. The costs will be paid for by a doubling of state taxes \u2013 the largest increase in state history, in what\u2019s already the nation\u2019s most-taxed and most-expensive state. Constantly \u201cunderfunded\u201d and micromanaged by Sacramento politicians, CalCare will certainly cost more and deliver less than CNA projects.\n<\/p>\n

The California Nurses Association has a solution for that coming financial crisis: it helped draft ACA 11, a companion bill to make it easier for state lawmakers to raise taxes. On the table: a tsunami of new taxes that would wipe out California businesses and increase taxes by\u00a0$12,250 per household<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

At present, two-thirds of the legislature must approve a tax hike; under ACA 11, tax hikes to support CalCare will be approved on a simple majority vote. And so the California Exodus \u2013 the departure of working Californians, the middle class and, yes, inevitably millionaires and billionaires for other states \u2013 will explode.\n<\/p>\n

That decline will accelerate with dire consequences. As tax revenue falls, the financial burden will shift to those left behind. And then those left behind will drop their burdens and leave, too \u2013 on and on until the crisis is so severe that the system fails completely.\n<\/p>\n

To paraphrase the late, great presidential candidate and businessman Ross Perot, that giant sucking sound you\u2019ll hear is the vacuum created by the exit of tens of thousands fleeing California.<\/p>\n

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This was originally published by California Policy Center Governor Newsom released his proposed budget this week, promising a massive surplus that special-interest groups can’t wait to spend. The problem is there is no actual surplus. California\u2019s state & local governments are shouldering a staggering $1.5 trillion in debt \u2013 50 times the $31 billion surplus\u00a0claimed\u00a0by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nNewsom's Mythical Budget Surplus - San Diego News Desk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=7952\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Newsom's Mythical Budget Surplus - San Diego News Desk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This was originally published by California Policy Center Governor Newsom released his proposed budget this week, promising a massive surplus that special-interest groups can’t wait to spend. 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