Searching for solutions

In an editorial before the June primary, we expressed exasperation with the choice of candidates voters were given for governor. It is the mark of the state’s broken political system that Democrats had only one viable candidate in former Gov. Jerry Brown and that Republicans had only two choices, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, who had once seemed to represent a new breed of pragmatic, consensus-seeking Silicon Valley Republicans but who by June were trying to outflank each other on the right by embracing extreme positions on illegal immigrants, the poor and state workers.

Now, with the race down to Brown and Whitman, we must choose one way or the other, and we opt for Brown. We don’t see him as California’s savior but instead as a kind of experienced mechanic who will know how to get a few more miles out of the state’s failing machinery. Whitman, instead of appearing to be the new-ideas kind of leader California needs, turns out instead to base her plan for the state on a list of popular but inaccurate cliches about how we got into our current mess and how to get out.

Recaps of our endorsements in all the races and for the nine propositions on the ballot can be found in the column below. Several of those ballot measures touch on budgeting, which is at the center of the state’s dysfunction. We do our best to remain consistent on budgeting measures from election to election. Some explanation is in order.

If crafting the state budget were turned into a board game like Monopoly — and perhaps someone, somewhere is working on just such a project — each player would probably represent a special state-funded program such as, say, parks, transportation or higher education. The object would be to get voters to adopt a ballot measure that removes the player’s special interest from the vagaries of the annual budget process by locking up some kind of special funding.

As California voters, we tend to do that a lot. For example, we adopted a complicated spending formula known as Proposition 98, which effectively requires that 40% to 50% of each annual budget be spent on K-12 education. We have similarly converted a gasoline excise tax from general fund revenue to a restricted transportation fund, diverted a portion of sales taxes to be spent only on law enforcement, and added a new spending mandate for after-school programs. Other portions of our taxes are locked up for public transit, road maintenance, mental health and many other things, regardless of how the economy is performing or what are priorities are in any particular year.

The problem is that there is never enough money to fund every necessary program this way, so each time a player takes a piece of funding off the table, revenue available for other programs shrinks and the state drifts closer to insolvency. The player who gets the initiative on the ballot and approved by voters wins the board game but bankrupts the rest of the state in the process.

In real life, voters keep taking away pieces of the general fund, leaving Sacramento with little power to do anything; then we complain that lawmakers and the governor don’t do anything.

Also, voters are repeatedly called on to answer yes-or-no questions, but that’s not the same as setting funding priorities. Do we want enough funding to keep parks open? Yes. Do we want enough funding to improve schools? Yes. Do we want enough funding for redevelopment? Yes. Do we want enough funding for transportation? Yes. Do we want to pay more in taxes? No. But there is not enough money to fund everything to which we say yes and still keep the state in business.

It should be the job of the Legislature to answer the tougher questions: If we have enough money to fully fund either parks or schools, but not both, what should we do? Unfortunately, lawmakers are only too happy to dodge the tough questions if they can, and we have seen — last year and this year — budget deals that include leaving the toughest questions for a future ballot measure. The process gives voters the illusion that they have final oversight, but in fact it merely allows lawmakers to escape accountability for their decisions.

The Times’ editorial page generally rejects ballot measures that exacerbate ballot-box budgeting and supports measures that compel the governor and lawmakers to set spending priorities and to be held politically accountable for their decisions.

So, for example, we consider California’s state parks to be a priceless resource and we’re alarmed at recent efforts to close them or leave them in disrepair, yet we urge voters to reject Proposition 21, a measure to impose an $18 fee on every motor vehicle in the state to provide a sheltered pot of funds for parks. Proponents argue that they’re not carving up the general fund because they’re adding new revenue, but that’s simply untrue. Until the late 1990s, we had a consistent 2% vehicle license fee that paid for local government and, later, general state expenditures. Much of the state’s persistent structural deficit can be traced to the sharp reduction of that fee. To now partially restore it, but to direct the money to one program rather than to the state’s top spending priorities, is ballot-box budgeting at its worst.

Likewise, we urge voters to say no to Proposition 22, which purports to end state “raids” on local redevelopment and transportation funds. It sounds good at first blush, and there’s good reason to prefer that many spending decisions be made locally rather than in Sacramento. But the raids became necessary in part because beginning a decade ago, lawmakers and later voters diverted gasoline excise tax revenue that once funded state government. Cities and transportation districts got used to this windfall and don’t want to give it up. Voters should reject this cash grab.

Proposition 24 is an attempt at ballot-box budgeting of another kind. Voters may be unhappy with the substance of three broad tax breaks granted to corporations in the 2009 budget deal, but overturning them in an election brings the state perilously close to allowing voters to rewrite budgets.

Accountability is the key to our support of Proposition 25, which would make budget decisions subject to a majority vote of lawmakers instead of the current two-thirds. The majority party — currently the Democrats — would be able to adopt a budget without minority approval and then would be forced to defend it if it leaves voters unhappy. The two-thirds requirement was intended to encourage bipartisanship and consensus. How’s that working out for us? Not well.