Contributors
Chuck DeVore- Contributor

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore represents Orange County California’s 70th Assembly District.. He served as a Reagan White House appointee in the Pentagon from 1986 to 1988 and was Senior Assistant to Cong. Chris Cox. He is a Major in the Army National Guard. Chuck’s novel, CHINA ATTACKS, sells internationally and has been translated into Chinese for sales in Taiwan. [go to DeVore index]

Voting on a Budget
Why yes?…
[Chuck DeVore] 7/13/05

The California Legislature approved the budget for 2005-2006 last week, seven days into the fiscal year. I voted in favor of passing the budget.

Interestingly, no one asked me for my vote or pressured me – perhaps since I’ve racked up the most “no” votes of any of the 80 members, leadership figured I was an automatic “no”. But, as with all of my votes, after analysis and reflection, I voted my conscience.

In the Assembly, the vote was 63-13 for passage with 54 votes needed for the required two-thirds threshold. Of the 13 members who voted “no” all were Republicans while 19 Republicans voted to support Governor Schwarzenegger’s budget. At the last tally, two Democrats present didn’t vote for the budget, presumably because it didn’t spend more tax money.

Some in the GOP may criticize this budget as too large. I agree. However, given that Republicans in Sacramento barely have more than one-third of the members of either house, the question needs to be asked, could we have done better?

The budget has no new taxes. The budget sticks closely to the governor’s proposal for education spending, rejecting the CTA union and Democrats’ calls to add another $3.1 billion of spending on top of the $3.1 billion increase proposed by the governor. The budget for the first time fully funds Prop. 42 road construction spending at $1.3 billion. And, the budget pays back a year early the full $1.2 billion the state took from local government in recent years. Most importantly, the budget passed will be almost $1.7 billion more in balance next year than the budget last proposed by the Democrats three weeks ago – a budget I voted against.

A budget, unlike a standalone bill, is a product of intense negotiations between the governor and the four legislative leaders – the “Big Five” as they’re called – it is, by definition, a consensus document. Usually, voting “no” on a budget is the default vote for members of the Republican minority. If enough Republicans vote “no” to prevent passage of the budget, the majority swings into action, offering pork or other incentives to lash together the needed votes to capture the two-thirds support required in both houses. On June 15th, not one Republican voted to approve the Democrats’ budget. Because we Republicans held firm under the steady hands of the two leaders of our respective houses, Sen. Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine) and Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), we were able to support the governor’s efforts to trim more fat out of the budget and pre-pay debts. What we ended up with was a victory.

Could we have gotten more concessions? Remember, we only have 32 of 80 members in the Assembly and 15 of 40 in the Senate. Had we tried to hold out, Democrats would have pushed back, dangling budgetary prizes in front of certain Republican members. A good indication of the danger in this can be found in a press announcement from one of my colleagues. The punch line occurs at the end of the release explaining their “no” vote when it is revealed that the budget didn’t spend enough on schools!

Lastly, some complain that this budget increases spending 14.5 percent over last year’s budget. That’s a bogus comparison. The budget enacted last year contained many accounting gimmicks. While it was to have spent $78.7 billion as passed by the legislature, the actual expenditures were $82.0 billion. This still yields a 9.9 percent increase in state spending for the new budget. However, $2.5 billion of that consists of loan repayments to local government and road construction spending (spending that is finally not being diverted to social welfare programs). Excluding these spending categories from consideration, you get an apples-to-apples budget increase of 6.9 percent. California’s inflation rate was 3.5 percent over the past year while our population increased another 1.5 percent meaning that this budget increased real government spending per capita 1.9 percent. Is this too much? Yes. Does it slow the rate of growth? Yes. That’s why the structural deficit was cut in half. This is progress.

The real solution to solving our spending problems is to elect more Republicans. The only way we can do that is to support the redistricting initiative and the paycheck protection initiative during this November’s special election. That, and the extra budget-cutting powers contained in the governor’s “Live Within Your Means” initiative will reshape the budget landscape and allow us to begin retiring some of that mountain of debt built up from the overspending of the Governor Davis years. CRO

copyright 2005 Chuck DeVore