No, Quake Didn’t End Tax Revolt : California: Calamity is no time to abandon fiscal prudence. Lawmakers should think twice before blaming Prop. 13 for quake damage and passing major new taxes.

One of the few good things to come out of the Bay Area earthquake is that it gave Californians an opportunity to demonstrate their resilience, courage and generosity. The temblor had barely subsided before we began to hear stories of miraculous heroics and self-sacrifice.

For those of us distant from the quake (at least distant enough that we didn’t suffer any personal loss), the immediate reaction was to do something--anything--to help. Thousands of citizens and businesses sustained substantial property losses. The damage to public buildings and freeways is staggering.

Among the understandable reactions is to raise taxes to assist with the rebuilding effort. The suggestions might be sincere and well-intentioned. However, Gov. Deukmejian and legislative leaders from both sides have concluded that any tax increase will be temporary and limited to a quarter-cent on the sales tax. The Legislature was to convene in special session today to consider the action.

Before we even begin to consider a more permanent tax change, we must ask whether there will be a gap between the amount of money needed for recovery and the amount already committed to the relief effort. At the latest count, insurance companies planned to pay out close to$1 billion. Private donations have already exceeded tens of millions of dollars and federal aid will top $4 billion, about a billion more than originally anticipated. The temporary sales tax hike, if approved, will generate about $800 million. It is simply too early to tell if more is needed.

However, the motives of those who point the finger at Proposition 13 and the Gann spending limit as somehow contributing to disaster deserve the closest of scrutiny.

Did Proposition 13 in any way reduce the state’s preparedness for the disaster? Very unlikely. The 880 freeway was built 20 years before it was passed. More important, highways and bridges are built with state and federal gas tax revenues, not property taxes.

The similar indictment of the Gann spending limit is also dubious. It has only been in the last few years that the state even reached its spending limit under Gann. Moreover, Proposition 98, passed last November, essentially eviscerated the limit, guaranteeing the lion’s share of state revenue to public elementary and high-school education. Indeed, the lack of revenue for infrastructure can be logically attributed to the recent phenomenon of “ballot box budgeting,” not the spending limit.

So instead of repealing Gann, which does not direct appropriations into any particular program, it makes more sense to re-examine state spending priorities generally.

Some commentators have suggested that the demands on public resources resulting from the earthquake foreshadow the demise of tax revolt. But California taxpayers remain conservative at heart. There is no groundswell of support to repeal Proposition 13 or the Gann limit. Proposition 98, which did alter Gann, was not packaged as a direct assault on the spending limit, but as a measure to guarantee schoolchildren a certain percentage of state funding.

A recent Field poll indicates that the tax revolt is far from over. Citizens would barely approve a temporary 1-cent increase in the sales tax for the specific purpose of urgent highway repair. The voting public continues to be hostile to any tax increase intended for the general fund or of indefinite duration. Any tax increase today has to be for a specific purpose perceived as urgent, and it has to be temporary.

Instead of calling for the repeal of Proposition 13 and Gann, now is the perfect time to rid the state of government programs that have long outlived their usefulness and shift that money to where it is truly needed--infrastructure upgrade. For years, transportation spending as a proportion of total state spending has declined, while automatic increases for entitlement programs have gone unchecked; education funding has lacked meaningful oversight, and the Legislature’s spending for its own activities and perks has gone off the Richter scale.

If those supporting higher taxes are really concerned with seismic safety for our freeways, let’s do something constructive and reverse Caltrans’ ever-shrinking slice of the state’s economic pie.

The calamity of an earthquake is no reason to abandon fiscal prudence. Quite the contrary, we should learn from this disaster and begin to shake up misguided spending priorities.