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"We need a strategic plan for California. We can let the future happen to us or we can plan our future."

-- F. Noel Perry,
Next Ten founder

"We need to rebuild the public's trust."

-- Leon Panetta, former Chief of Staff to President Clinton

"The people of California are better than this budget."

-- Angela Glover Blackwell, President of PolicyLink

Solving the "Structural" Deficit, continued

Business participants stressed the importance of first making the state government more efficient. San Fernando Valley attendee Enrique Lopez asked, "Do we have the highest bang for the buck in government services? Are we as efficient as we could be?"

Other Southern California audiences also asserted that a stronger business climate would help improve the economy and therefore expand the tax base. On the other hand, Bay Area audiences stressed the need to preserve our quality of life and a willingness to support revenue increases to resolve the budget deficit.

In the area of savings, there appears to be common ground on prison spending. The corrections budget nearly equals the spending for higher education in California. One possible area of reform is the Three Strikes law, which doesn't differentiate between someone who commits a violent crime and someone who steals a bicycle. This means that many non-violent offenders are incarcerated for long periods -- at a high cost to the state. Given the high cost of incarceration, participants in many regions, including Republican strongholds such as Orange County and San Fernando Valley, expressed an interest in re-examining Three Strikes.

In all of the regions attendees expressed concern that pension levels for state employees are disproportionately high compared to other states. California state employee pension levels are the highest in the nation. Some suggested that savings may be possible through reducing incentives for early retirement.

Participants generally agreed that higher education and infrastructure are high priorities for state spending. As one Orange County attendee stated: "The drivers of economic growth are education and infrastructure. To cut here we are hurting ourselves." However, at least some participants in every region of the state, including San Francisco, voiced support for increasing state college tuition, as long as financial aid for low-income students is also increased.

There was widespread support for a united congressional delegation advocating to increase our "fair share" of federal funding, though that is easier said than done. California is a relatively rich state, so its residents contribute a lot in federal taxes. At the same time we are also a relatively young state, so we get back a comparatively small amount of Social Security and Medicare payments.

Other ideas offered included reinstatement of the VLF, an increased tax rate on higher incomes, a sales tax on services, and a tax on Internet sales. The "taboo" subject of Proposition 13 was widely thought to be worthy of further investigation.

Overall, most participants realized that there are no easy fixes to our budget challenges. However, the participants were civic leaders in their communities, not a random sample of the actual population. So we must ask: Would the average citizen go for any of these suggestions, especially when they directly affect his or her pocketbook?

Next Ten is planning a limited number of additional budget education dialogues in the fall. If you want to learn more about co-sponsoring a budget education event this fall, please contact Leticia Miranda at lmiranda@ccrl.org.

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