Back To The Future: Still Overspending

Time circuits on. Engine running. Flux capacitor ... fluxing. Great Scott! Clocking in at 88 miles per hour, California's Assembly members and senators have traveled back in time in their cushy state-subsidized DeLoreans to 2003, a year when the budget was approximately $13.4 billion in the red. That's right Future Boy - the Legislature just broke the budget time barrier and has only got 45 days to get it fixed.

Seriously, it has been more than four years since voters booted Gray Davis out of office for mismanaging the state's economy and little has changed. California now has a projected deficit of $14.5 billion. As Marty McFly would exclaim, "Whoa, this is heavy."

But alas - not all is doom and gloom. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger believes we can bring this monstrous deficit under control, without raising taxes, and I am inclined to agree. It can be done if we all work together, Republicans and Democrats.

During his state-of-the-state address last week, the governor renewed his call for comprehensive budget reform to bring spending under control. Republican lawmakers already have legislation in the works to do just that. In fact, one of the first things Assemblyman Ted Gaines did after being sworn into office last year was to introduce ACA 3, which would institute a state spending limit.

The governor is to be commended for declaring that our budget crisis is due to massive overspending. As your legislator, I stand with him ready to work toward a balanced budget - a budget that protects the pocketbooks of California's working families, because they deserve no less. It would be unfair to squeeze taxpayers for more money to pay for the reckless spending habits of the liberal majority party.

Some lawmakers claim the state has a revenue problem - that your taxes should be raised to plug the deficit hole. But don't be so gullible, McFly. The government collects enough of your hard-earned dough as it is. California's working families live under one of the highest tax burdens in the United States. Raising taxes would only stifle economic growth and delay the state's fiscal recovery.

Another thing the spending addicts try to do is appeal to your emotions. They cry out that Republicans want to "take the canes away from the blind," "kick people out of their wheelchairs" and "balance the budget on the backs of the poor." They advocate raising taxes on the wealthy and closing tax breaks for yacht owners (which incidentally would only generate $7 million).

If any of that sounds familiar, it is because it is the same old class-warfare rhetoric they employ every year. The real problem is that we already burden the top 10 percent income earners with 80 percent of the tax load. These are the guys who create jobs for the rest of us, but who can just as easily move to a neighboring state that will welcome them, their jobs and their tax dollars with open arms.

I am just as compassionate as the next person and have absolutely no desire to take away anyone's wheelchair. The fact is the state is spending a ton of money more than it is taking in, putting us into bankruptcy faster than you can say 1.21 gigawatts, and it has got to start living within its means. As the governor said in his address, "fiscal responsibility, like compassion, is a virtue, because it allows the necessary programs in the first place."

In the coming months, it is critical that my Democrat colleagues focus on the budget crisis and refrain from continued deficit spending. They should also cease and desist from passing legislation to require Einstein the dog to be neutered or to bring about the early release of Uncle "Jail Bird" Joey, like they tried to do in 2007. Because clearly, we have our work cut out for us.

We need to roll up our sleeves, repair the rift in the space-time continuum, and fix the broken budget system once and for all, while protecting working families from excessive taxation.

Let's send California back to the future - back to fiscal sanity. It is not an impossible feat. After all, it's like Doc always says: If we put our minds to it, we can accomplish anything.