How did California's budget crisis happen? On the next Your Call, we continue our week long series about California's economic crisis by focusing on how we got here in the first place. The State has a 24 billion dollar budget deficit. What caused it? Overspending? The state's tax system? Prop 13? The 2/3 majority requirement? Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 am. What can we learn from the current mess as we look toward fundamental reform? It's Your Call with me, Rose Aguilar and you.
Guests:
Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association
Mark Paul, senior scholar at the New America Foundation, was formerly deputy treasurer of California and deputy editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee.
Click to Listen: How did California's budget crisis happen?
My two cents: We got here because of the reduction of the vehicle
ReplyDeletelicense tax. As Willie Brown points out,
"The seeds of this disaster were sown years ago, both by
Schwarzenegger and by the Legislature, but neither side wants to face that fact. The Legislature put together a leaky budget boat by building unrealistic annual spending into law. Then Schwarzenegger kicked a hole in it with his reduction of the vehicle license tax."
- Willie Brown, SF Chronicle 5/17/09