Our fair share

Usually it’s conservatives who argue that some jurisdiction or another is being mistreated because it gets less back in spending or services than it pays in taxes. Don’t raise our taxes, they argue, until we get our money’s worth. But now Democrats are the ones arguing for federal help based on California’s contribution to the national Treasury. They’re partly wrong, and partly right.

They’re wrong if they believe the feds will sweep away California’s $14.8-billion shortfall in the current fiscal year, the $25 billion in the coming fiscal year and, while they’re at it, the state’s structural deficit, legislative Republicans’ stranglehold on budgeting and voters’ penchant for passing initiatives they can’t afford. This page has designated that sort of wish-upon-a-star approach to budgeting a dead end.

And they’re wrong if they now buy into the conservative argument that Californians’ taxes should be considered fees for service, and that they have a right to get back a dollar in goods or programs for every dollar they pay. Taxes support the nation as a whole, and if more tax money from this state goes to, say, Mississippi because that state needs more federal help, that’s the way it should be.

Within reason, of course; California should not be expected to damage its economy for the sake of Mississippi, in part because that would decrease Californians’ ability to contribute to federal efforts in any state.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) is on to something when she calls for increasing federal contributions in carefully targeted areas. In recent meetings in Washington, Bass and Assembly Budget Chairwoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) pinpointed several programs for which more rational federal reimbursements would help not only this state but the nation. For example, if California were like other states and got more than the bare minimum Medicaid assistance percentage, Medi-Cal reimbursements would not have been cut so deeply, physicians would not be leaving in droves, more hospitals would not be close to collapse, and much of California’s wealth would not have to be pumped into the costs of delayed medical care. The same goes for California’s allocation from the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

And of course, if the federal government took responsibility for paying the costs of illegal immigration, the state would not be as deep in the hole on programs such as prisons and healthcare.

Bass is right to insist that the feds meet their obligations. California is not entitled to a bailout, but a smart investment in the state would benefit the entire nation.