In an interview broadcast on the Fox Business Channel’s “Mayor Monday” segment earlier this week, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed called California “ungovernable,” and called for a constitutional convention to set matters right. “We fight and fight and fight and fight, and never get anything accomplished,” he said, adding that the state hasn’t really had a balanced budget for over a decade.
Responding to David Asman‘s query about Sacramento trying to take money from the city, Reed corrected the co-host, almost testily: “They’re not trying to take our money. They’re taking our money.” He pointed out that Sacramento has repeatedly raided the city’s coffers to cover its own budget deficit.
He then provided the statistics to back up his claim: $20 million in property taxes and $75 million in redevelopment funds have been grabbed by the state government already. “It’s not good for business, it’s not good for the economy, but that’s what they’ve done.”
Asked by co-host Liz Claman about the gubernatorial race, Reed replied curtly: “I don’t think it’s gonna matter all that much who’s governor,” adding that the only solution is to “reboot the state.” Asman was clearly thrilled, and proceeded to pour gasoline on the fire with a little bit of Fox’s patented brand of hyperbole: “This is like a declaration of war against Sacramento,” he said ominously. Reed simply shrugged.
The Mayor is correct, California is ungovernable. We have perverted our constitution so much that the legislature is powerless to do anything but argue over how to balance our budget during bad times, while opening the spigots wide during good times.
The U.S. Constitution fits on 6 pages. The California Constitution contains 33 articles spanning 111 pages, the third longest in the world. The thing is broken, and needs fixing.
How did we get here? Voters don’t trust their elected representatives. Nevertheless, the same political hacks get elected over and over again(see Garamendi, Brown, et al). So they modify the constitution to protect themselves from themselves (see Prop 13, Prop 140, etc.)
Anybody with enough money can use the initiative process to change the constitution (see Prop 71, Prop 8).
It is time for a constitutional convention to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, entrenched special interests are too busy feeding at the taxpayer trough, and will do anything possible to prevent such a thing. Rather than force the issue, I suspect that many voters will vote with their feet and head to more taxpayer friendly states.
The primary goal of the politicians in a constitutional convention will be to eliminate Prop. 13.
Current or past (for the last 10 years) officeholders should be banned as delegates to any such convention.
They’ll muck it up, just as they gerrymander themselves into safe seats every chance they get.
Translation.
Chuck Reed seeks to eliminate Proposition 13 and also make sure same sex marriage is banned for all time.
Reed answers to the tax and spend public elite. He is the insider of the outsiders.
Someone else told the people that he is the savior of their government, and look what happened. Reed is just the American version.
> $20 million in property taxes and $75 million in redevelopment funds have been grabbed by the state government already.
Question: Where do redevelopment funds actually come from?
Whose pocket is the state government picking when they grab redevelopment funds?
“RDA” funds are first stolen by the City from funds that would otherwise go to schools, libraries, police, fire, etc.
Subsequently, the State steals the funds from the City.
The end result is that the City gets all pissy that the State trumped their theft.
> “RDA” funds are first stolen by the City from funds that would otherwise go to schools, libraries, police, fire, etc.
Somewhat helpful, but still not completely clear.
Would the stolen funds that would otherwise go to city purposes be property taxes?
If so, then the $20 million and $75 million “grabbed by the state government” are really ALL property taxes. N’est ce pas?
what is the purpose of having to “submit the word you see below” in order to post a comment?
Over the past several weeks SJI has been bombarded with more and more spam. It had gotten to where four or five times a day we had to wade through, and then delete, 20-plus bogus “comments.” We are now using a “captcha,” which many of you have seen elsewhere, to keep the spam-bots away.
How does it keep anything away? All one need do is type the word they see?
I get this sometimes in on-line transactions. Often the series of letters and numbers is indecipherable to me, so I give up and don’t buy the product.
Mr. Reed complains but he will endorse the same tired crew in Sacramento whenever they come up for re election or move on to a new office: Beall, Simitian, Alquist, Coto, etc…
Well, our local representatives – the ones you mention, oppose the raid on funds but were left with no choice when Republicans in the legislature refused to consider any reasonable revenue solutions. Republicans also support zero cuts to corrections. So Beall, Simitian, Alquist, Coto, etc, were left with the choice of decimating schools, social programs, universities, state parks, etc, even more than they did, or to find money elsewhere.
We need more folks like our local legislators in Sacramento to do what is right so that local money can be left alone. As long as the 2/3 requirement holds our local legislators hostage, this will be the result.
Now fire away…
Most social programs are black holes for money, propping up lazy non-producers at everyone else’s expense. Families on welfare for generations…
Universities have continued to cost more. Why? One, because too many folks who have no business there somehow get in. Half the entering classes in many campuses have to take bonehead english. They don’t belong. Second reason must be the gazillioin tenured professors who teach few, if any, classes (that’s why they have free grad. assts.), and command the highest salaries and can’t be fired. The fixed non-personnel costs are much the same. They own the land, the buildings are already there. Make every professor teach at least 20 hours per week, and only admit people who can read and write properly, which will cut the student body in half. Do as Germany & Japan do—send those who don’t belong in college to a trade or tech school We need more mechanics more than we need more lawyers or professors.
Stae parks—simple—make them self-supporting by rasiing user fees high enough that no further tax $$ are needed. This plan to hike everyone’s DMV fees to cover the expenses of the parks used by a relative few—many from out of state who pay NOTHING toward their operation—needs to be defeated. If you want to enter a park and use its facilities, then pay your freight. No-one subsidizes your hotel stay, so why should someone subsidize your use of parks or camp grounds?
“We need more folks like our local legislators in Sacramento to do what is right…”
What “right” did Beall, Simitian, Alquist, etc… wish to do? Raise taxes in a major recession with over 10% unemployment?
As far as I could tell Beall, Simitian, Alquist, etc… were not doing much while the “Big 5” negotiated in secrecy during the most recent budget crisis. No late nights or weekends for this crowd while California suffered.
> So Beall, Simitian, Alquist, Coto, etc, were left with the choice of decimating schools, social programs, universities, state parks, etc, even more than they did, or to find money elsewhere.
I vote for decimating schools (especially the educrat bureaucracy), social programs, universities (especially the bogus social sciences and tenured faculty drones), and nicking the state parks a little bit. I’m sure there are state parks that are only minimally utilized, and their only reason for existing is to provide some publicly funded green space for some privileged politicians or government connected plutocrates.
lets try district reform 1st.. let a few election cycles pass and see how the Legislature responds…