Letters to the Editor: On the State Budget

Arroyo Grande

What am I missing? It seems so obvious to me what the major problem is: unfunded mandates. It is as simple as that. The people vote on propositions, many of which require funding, but the people are not required to provide the funding source. That is an unfunded mandate. It is wrong. It needs to be changed so that the funding is automatic and not voted on directly, but it absolutely must be specified.

Propositions are usually the result of a special-interest group wanting something, and the history of special-interest groups suggests that if they were allowed to also describe the method of raising funding, it would be targeted toward people they do not like. This is unacceptable, so I propose a sales tax increase as an automatic consequence of passing a proposition that requires funding.

An independent assessment of the increase in sales tax must be made and must become part of the proposition, so the people know what they are committing to.

I suspect the cumulative cost of all unfunded and approved propositions throughout our history is well in excess of $1 billion.

P.N. Grimaud

Arroyo Grande

I cannot believe that the village idiot of Austria is proposing to close so many parks. For people who have not seen the list, you need to check out this link: http://www.calparks.org/takeaction/may2009_closedparks_leg-match.pdf.

Oh, and another thing: How can you cut staffing on 24/7 public services or make state employees take three days a month off? Does this guy know how much mandatory overtime he has added to California’s tab? I think he’s smoking some kind of special cigars under that lousy tent of his.

John Crippen

Atascadero

The real message of Erwin Chemerinsky’s commentary (May 31) was that we need a constitutional convention; we just don’t need him or the likes of him on it. The failures he describes of the commission he chaired in Los Angeles are failures of leadership, not process.

To advocate not having a convention because it will take too long or be too hard demonstrates a lack of will, not a lack of need. To suggest fixing the problem through the very proposition procedure that caused it demonstrates timidity, not foresight.

California needs a new constitution, one drafted by men and women willing to put aside special interests and self interest and who are willing to forge a framework of rules that will guide us into the future. Now is the perfect time to do it. We can draw on 200-plus years of experience from the other states, picking out what works and discarding what doesn’t. Join the movement. Find out more at www.repaircalifornia.org.

Patrick Moloney

Los Osos

Wow, the state of California is a mess, people are losing their jobs and homes left and right, people here are hungry and have no medical care and the United States is sending $100 million to Pakistan. But the oil companies are still wanting to make record profits with the cost of gas rising every day again.

Ronald Mac

Atascadero

If any of you out there care, all of us who are vets, blind, crippled or disabled in some way and try to live on $491 a month have just had our governor cut our checks $39 a month to help him bail out of the mess he got this state into. He doesn’t mind with his millions in the bank.

Maybe we should vote in another movie star for governor, but I personally can’t afford it.

Somebody help!

Nick Nichols

Grover Beach

I was taught by my father to lead by example. Right after World War II, I was running a crew of 40 to 50 men in a sugar factory. I never once asked them to do anything I wouldn’t or couldn’t do.

Later in life, as a pharmacist, when recessions hit, our group of pharmacists took it on ourselves to cut back hours so that no one was laid off. We were part of a union that never said a word.

It would seem to me that our state Legislature could cut their own wages 10 percent before asking the citizenry to absorb the amount of tax increase they are asking. This would be leading by example.

Then perhaps the overloaded school administrations could do the same instead of so many pink slips. It’s probably too much to expect of the unions to think of scaling back so that every person is working and not drawing unemployment insurance.

It used to be that any civil service job was low-paying. However, they had good benefits and a secure future. With the entrance of government-type unions, they were soon on the move to more comparable wages. Private enterprise has no comparable benefit structure to protect its employees.

John B. Ratekin

Paso Robles