Contributor

Ray Haynes

Mr. Haynes is an Assembly member representing Riverside and Temecula. He serves on the Appropriations and Budget Committees. [go to Assembly Member Haynes website at California Assembly][go to Haynes index]

What Causes California's Budget Deficits?
Give you one guess…
[Ray Haynes] 5/17/05

Spending.

I know that sounds too simple, but it is true. There is a certain kind of inertia in government that pushes the debate in the budget towards bigger and bigger government.

Governor Schwarzenegger gets it, and, because he gets it, he is getting it big time. The hundreds of thousands of people who make money off of the government are devoting a considerable amount of that money to beating him up on television and radio statewide, in order to back him off, and try to get him to capitulate to the forces that drive the current status quo. He releases his “May revise” to the January budget this week. At the time this is written, there has not been enough time to analyze the details of the revision, but, from early reports, it looks as though the Governor is not giving up on his push to reform.

Over the last two weeks, he has been turning in the signatures necessary for redistricting reform, teacher tenure reform, and budget reform. He is still pushing for merit pay for teachers. He has indicated his budget will repay the money the state has taken away from freeway construction to help alleviate traffic congestion, but other than that, the Governor has indicated he will not increase spending on the programs that caused the deficits earlier this decade. If he sticks with that, California may just pull out of this current budget debacle.

If he sticks with that, however, the people who make money off of the current government system will scream bloody murder. The bosses in charge of the teachers’ union, the welfare workers’ union, the nurses union, the government employees union, and the entire myriad of other public employee unions know that this is a critical year in the history of California. They have lived by forcing government employees to pay them money (calling them either “dues” or “fair share fees”), then using that money to influence the political process to maintain their power. Their influence created this current budget crisis, and cost Gray Davis his job. They are the force behind the constant push of the Democrats to raise taxes.

Of the over $30 million these groups have put into politics last year, 90% of it went to liberal Democrats. The sole agenda of these government unions is the constant expansion of government, more employees paying more dues, in order to maintain the ever expanding power of the union bosses. These bosses hide behind the skirts of the schoolgirls, or the wheel chairs of the disabled, or the so-called “environmental crisis” to justify their designs on your pocketbook. Their large resources make it hard to counter their agenda of lies and deceit. Worst of all, they really don’t care if they do anything for the schools, the disabled or the environment, so long as the budgets for these programs keeps growing.

Which makes the other initiative that just qualified all the more important. The Paycheck protection initiative would stop the forcible collection of dues by these greedy robber barons. These union bosses would have to convince government employees to pay them money to pursue this agenda of bigger government and higher taxes. If paycheck protection is enacted, no longer would we hear the latest teachers’ union boss bash those who want to make sure kids learn something in school. No longer would we have to listen to someone earning $100,000 (or more) whine about not having enough money. Paycheck protection means we can bring these robber barons under control.

Spending causes budget deficits, but union bosses drive spending. The only way to stop the spending is to defund the bosses. It is just that simple.CRO

Mr. Haynes is a California Assembleyman representing Riverside and Temecula and frequent contributor to CaliforniaRepublic.org.

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