Attack on Prop. 4 Takes Aim at a Bigger Target--Prop. 13

Bill Honig, at his recent swearing-in ceremony to another term as California’s superintendent of public instruction, announced that he would sponsor a 1988 ballot measure to raise the ceiling of the voter-approved Gann limit on state government spending.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) joined the anti-Gann wagon by introducing a constitutional amendment Monday that would raise the limit on how much state and local governments could spend from existing revenues.

So far, Paul Gann’s Proposition 4 initiative, which passed by a 74% landslide in 1979, has not even been put to the test. But that time is coming as state spending is about to bump up against the limits calling for government budget increases that are no greater than a prescribed formula based on the rate of inflation and population growth. If government collects in taxes more than the limits allow, the additional revenue must be returned to the taxpayers.

Such a spending limit and redistribution of excess funds serves as a powerful reminder to those who allocate the funds--and to those who spend them--to do so wisely. Priorities must be set and, once established, adhered to without escape routes that lead to increased taxes.

Honig’s stated reason for leading the campaign to undo the as-yet-untried Gann limit is that education has not received its fair share of the pie in the recent budget proposed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Yet government agencies are not the only ones required to rethink priorities, curtail expenditures and tighten belts. Most taxpayers have a difficult time living within their means as well.

What is ironic is that Honig, who has not voiced opposition to the governor’s education budgets before, should start complainning now. Less than a decade ago former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. allocated $8.1 billion from the state’s general fund to education. Deukmejian’s 1987-88 budget proposal calls for a $17.2-billion allocation--55% of the total budget and an increase of 113% in less than a decade. In fact, the entire 1979-80 state budget was nearly the same as the amount proposed for education alone in 1987-88.

Education has received a great boost in funds during the past few years through legislation that provides for additional revenue from supplemental property taxes and fees on new construction. In addition, education receives more money from local taxes, federal funds and the California lottery.

Yet Honig considers the 1987-88 budget “disastrous” for California schools. In justifying his sentiments, Honig has repeatedly compared New York state school expenditures to California’s. New York, he points out, spends well over $5,000 per student while California spends just over $3,000. But it also should be noted that, in the 1986 report from the U.S. Department of Education, California students scored better than their New York counterparts on Scholastic Aptitude Tests.

One of the painful lessons that we as a nation have learned is that despite the enormous amounts of money spent to fund the War on Poverty, we lost. Throwing money at a problem is not necessarily the solution.

We also should consider how the proposed Honig initiative would alter the constitutional limit on spending. Honig proposes to base the new limit on a formula involving personal income. If that formula were in effect today, state spending could increase at least 15%. If this formula is applied, many so-called tax reformers see an opportunity to transform the sacred cow of education into a Trojan horse to gut protections that the taxpayers have voted into law.

One political writer has suggested that, since Californians’ personal income is increasing faster than inflation, “government has a legitimate right to ask that part of the extra money be used to support schools, highways, pollution controls and the like.” Does the taxpayer really consider the increase as “extra money?” This smacks of the age-old argument that government owns all of our personal wealth. Officials take what they think they need to run the government, and return what’s left.

The Honig-Hart alternatives to Proposition 4 have implications beyond altering the Gann initiative. These implications point to the ultimate target--Proposition 13, the sweeping tax-cut measure approved by voters in 1978.

If the Gann limits become too restrictive once they have been implemented, then the people will demand a change. But the limits have not been tested yet. The voters have a right to see the Gann initiative in action before any changes are even contemplated.