2008 Woodie Awards
Much ado about nothing at capitol
Louie Araujo
Issue date: 9/8/03 Section: Opinion
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The cause of the uproar that threw California Community Colleges into a frenzy of uncertainty during this past spring semester and sent administrators into a pitched scramble in an effort to make mid-term budget cuts that would secure students, classified workers, faculty, administrators and keep Yuba Community College solvent has quietly been put to sleep.
Two weeks have passed since California's Legislature submitted a third annual budget that held Republicans and Democrats in a tug-of war between resisting tax increases and spending cuts. In effect the Legislature did neither.
While raising taxes and cutting spending is at the heart of the recall battle in Sacramento, the problem is not going away because it is bigger than one man.
The fact is that Californians for the past several years have spent money on services they want but cannot afford without raising taxes. Despite the present crisis, the administration balanced the 2003-04 budgets by continuing the practice of the past several years with easy fixes, loans, bonds and schemes that push the budget problem into the next spring semester.
Obviously the problem poses tough questions that are presently being averted by the recall.
Possibly 30,000 students may not be able to register at state colleges next spring and that half of the cost of living expenses in state aid for this year will be denied to senior and disabled persons, but this is marginal damage in contrast to the much deeper cuts and higher taxes required to really balance California's books.
Imagine a person with several bank accounts that is living beyond his or her cash income and goes into overdraft on one account and borrows from a second account to satisfy the overdraft of the first account and then because the person continues to spend, the second account goes into overdraft. So the person then transfers money from the third account to the second, and continues to spend until the person is spending so much money for services through a five year period that all the accounts are caused to go into overdraft and then this person begins to juggle money around in an attempt to keep up with the overdrafts, until finally there is no money and no income. This is the state of California.
Two weeks have passed since California's Legislature submitted a third annual budget that held Republicans and Democrats in a tug-of war between resisting tax increases and spending cuts. In effect the Legislature did neither.
While raising taxes and cutting spending is at the heart of the recall battle in Sacramento, the problem is not going away because it is bigger than one man.
The fact is that Californians for the past several years have spent money on services they want but cannot afford without raising taxes. Despite the present crisis, the administration balanced the 2003-04 budgets by continuing the practice of the past several years with easy fixes, loans, bonds and schemes that push the budget problem into the next spring semester.
Obviously the problem poses tough questions that are presently being averted by the recall.
Possibly 30,000 students may not be able to register at state colleges next spring and that half of the cost of living expenses in state aid for this year will be denied to senior and disabled persons, but this is marginal damage in contrast to the much deeper cuts and higher taxes required to really balance California's books.
Imagine a person with several bank accounts that is living beyond his or her cash income and goes into overdraft on one account and borrows from a second account to satisfy the overdraft of the first account and then because the person continues to spend, the second account goes into overdraft. So the person then transfers money from the third account to the second, and continues to spend until the person is spending so much money for services through a five year period that all the accounts are caused to go into overdraft and then this person begins to juggle money around in an attempt to keep up with the overdrafts, until finally there is no money and no income. This is the state of California.