SEIU’s Plan for Belt-tightening (For You, Not SEIU)
California’s budget has grown 40% over the last four years, vastly outstripping inflation and the state’s tax revenues. As a consequence, California now faces a budget deficit larger than the entire budget of Washington State.
So how does the Service Employees International Union, the single biggest political player in the state because it represents state workers, propose to deal with the crisis? Last week, it released its so-called "dream budget," filled with exactly the kind of nightmare notions which helped get the state into its current fiscal black hole.
The SEIU budget categorically rejects any talk by GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of changing work rules for state employees or laying off workers. In fact, the union rejects any budget cuts at all in the state’s sprawling government. Instead, the labor group endorses every tax hike already proposed by the governor and ups the ante with several of its own, including higher vehicle-license fees for cars worth more than $20,000 as well as an income tax hike on households making more than $250,000 a year. The union’s wish list also includes higher taxes on oil production and alcoholic beverages and a sales tax on entertainment.
All this tax-hiking still wouldn’t wipe out the deficit, so SEIU proposes to lobby Washington for a $15 billion federal bailout, including $10 billion in the current fiscal year.
Even legislative Democrats don’t believe that kind of largesse will be coming from the Obama administration, but they certainly follow SEIU’s lead in opposing any budget cuts. Meanwhile, taxes can only be raised in California with a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature, and minority Republicans are refusing to pass any new measures to raise revenue.
By now, some may recall that a similar leadership paralysis in the face of fiscal meltdown was a big reason California voters turned to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first place. Forget the Big Three auto makers declaring Chapter 11. Given the fecklessness of its political class, the State of California may yet have to turn to a bankruptcy judge to make the tough choices its leaders refuse to make.
— John Fund