Delaine Eastin
The children of California didn’t create the budget mess in Sacramento, nor did they push state government to the brink of insolvency. It is the politicians, who have been unable to make hard decisions and say no to special interests, who have brought our great state to the edge of fiscal ruin.
All the same, that hasn’t stopped Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – yet again – from proposing to balance the budget on the backs of California’s young children.
The state faces extreme financial difficulties. The huge, festering budget deficits are more in character for a failed Third World country than what was once the most prosperous, forward-looking state in the Union.
This extraordinarily grave situation calls for boldness, judgment, thoughtfulness and innovative thinking. As Abraham Lincoln said during his own time of crisis, “We must think anew, and act anew.”
Instead, Gov. Schwarzenegger has hauled smoke and mirrors from the storage closet and is recycling last year’s discredited gimmicks.
Among these is a proposal to narrow the budget deficit by hijacking more than a half-billion dollars in revenue from the Proposition 10 tobacco tax.
If you have the feeling you’ve heard this song before, it’s because you have. In May, California voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 1D – an almost identical proposal to divert Proposition 10 revenues into the black hole known as the state’s general fund.
Voters recognize what has escaped the governor’s grasp: First 5 Commissions that allocate Proposition 10 revenues are doing critical work, and the programs they fund concretely benefit the young children in every California county.
The governor’s proposal, like the defeated Proposition 1D from which it is cloned, will rob funds from vital local health and education programs for young children. If enacted, it will eliminate health services for 285,000 children and dental care for 70,350.
It will wipe out quality preschool and other school-readiness programs for more than 230,000 children and take more than $32 million annually from public health departments and $60 million from hospitals and clinics.
Such carnage is the tip of the iceberg and would be inflicted on California’s youngest, most vulnerable residents.
And yet, hijacking Proposition 10 revenues will do nothing to solve a budget crisis that stems from the shortsightedness of politicians and the failure to enact structural reforms to place state government on the road to financial stability.
Sixteen times the Legislature was asked to raise tobacco taxes. Sixteen times it failed. It should not be allowed to steal the tobacco tax money that it lacks the courage to raise. The voters passed this law, and that is why the governor must ask for permission to steal it.
It’s difficult to see how much clearer California voters can be when it comes to Proposition 10 tobacco taxes and the First 5 Commissions they fund. Voters approved Proposition 10 in 1998 and two years later overwhelmingly rejected the tobacco industry’s initiative to repeal it. Only eight months ago, 66 percent of California voters said “no” to Proposition 1D. This is a waste of time and money.
The governor is fond of fostering his image as the “green” governor, but that should not extend to recycling an ill-considered raid on Proposition 10 revenues that will degrade the environment in which California’s youngest children live and learn.