Our View: State needs spending limit, not more taxes

Anti-tax groups propose a new spending limitation for California government via a constitutional amendment that also would require any surplus revenue be used to pay down the state's burgeoning debt.

It is shameful that such a commonsense solution had to be proposed by people outside government, rather than the people on the inside elected to make such decisions.

It is doubly condemning that leaders within government and beneficiaries of government largess simultaneously propose increasing even more the burden on taxpayers, rather than limiting spending.

If the prudent and the profligate collect enough signatures to place their respective ballot measures on the November 2012 ballot, voters will have a rare opportunity to choose between stark contrasts. They will be asked to either stop out-of-control spending, or give a green light to Sacramento's tax-and-spend machine to take and squander even more of their money.

The alternatives are not merely stark. The choice should be obvious. We believe California voters will choose wisely and cap spending.

"This measure will allow voters to make a clear choice between higher taxes or responsible limits on government spending," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a sponsor of the proposed "Government Spending Limit Act of 2012."

Teresa Casazza, president of the California Taxpayers Association, another group sponsoring the tax limitation initiative, said: "This sound and sensible proposal will force government to live within its means, balance the budget, pay down debt and control spending."

The tax limitation would restrict spending increases to the prior year's level, adjusted for growth in the state's personal income, and require surplus revenue be spent first on debt service. The initiative also would strengthen the two-thirds vote requirement for the Legislature to authorize or raise taxes. Lawmakers have become creative at circumventing the current constitutional two-thirds standard.

State spending increased by $39 billion since 2000. The state's debt hovers at nearly $200 billion. Unfunded government employee pension liability is estimated as high as $500 billion. The current budget, balanced last June with gimmicks and wishful thinking, is estimated to run as much as $13 billion in the red by July.

"Budgets rely on gimmicks and are out of balance as soon as they are signed," according to a joint statement by Casazza, Coupal and Joel Fox, president of the Small Business Action Committee. "Yet our elected officials refuse to reform pensions and fail to prioritize spending. Instead, they threaten cuts to programs like law enforcement and schools unless voters approve massive tax increases."

Any impartial observer can agree with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who concluded some years ago that the state does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.

But as anyone who has paid attention to Sacramento can just as easily attest, those inside government are either unwilling or incapable of fixing that problem. That was exemplified by Schwarzenegger himself, who, despite his own assessment, signed the state's highest-ever tax increases in 2009, and then immediately hit the campaign trail to ask voters to increase those taxes some more. Unsurprisingly, voters rejected that measure by 2-1.

Voters in 1979 approved the Gann Initiative spending limit, named after its sponsor, anti-tax crusader Paul Gann, with 74 percent in favor. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown supported it. Today Brown is among those proposing tax increases. The Gann initiative has been "diluted to the point of ineffectiveness," say proponents of the new initiative. We agree. Voters should, too.