Sacramento — California is a backwater in the presidential primaries. And the Republican Senate race seems a runaway. So the hottest items on Tuesday's statewide ballot are three proposition questions.
I say three because two ballot propositions -- 57 and 58 -- are really one question: Do we trust Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his budget borrowing-and-balancing scheme? Or tell him to look at other options?
Another question is whether to make it easier for the Legislature to pass budgets and tax increases. Prop. 56 would lower the vote requirement to 55% from the current two-thirds majority. Do we move closer to the rest of America? Only three states require more than a simple majority vote for budget passage; just 11 for a tax hike.
The other question is whether to issue $12.3 billion in school construction bonds through Prop. 55. Do we relieve classroom overcrowding, patch leaking roofs and fix inoperable bathrooms? Or stiff school kids?
Many myths -- some based on misinformation -- have evolved around the props. Here are three:
* Myth 1: There's no alternative to Schwarzenegger's $15-billion bond -- Prop. 57 -- even if everybody does have to hold their noses to vote for it.
In truth, there are alternatives that are more fiscally prudent. They're just deemed more politically painful by the governor and most lawmakers.
The governor's plan -- negotiated with Democrats -- is to borrow $15 billion and pay it back over a nine-to-14 year period at a financing cost of from $4 billion to $6 billion. That would pay for current deficit spending, including the car tax cut.
It does seem fiscally irresponsible to, in effect, take out a mortgage to buy groceries, fill the gas tank and pay the gardener. And very un-Republican.
One option Schwarzenegger never mentions is tucked away in his Finance Department. This "Plan B" involves using a smaller, $10.7-billion deficit-financing bond authorized last year by the Legislature, but not sold. It has only a five-year payback with a much smaller financing cost. But there'd be more immediate pain because the annual loan payment would be $2.4 billion, twice that of Prop. 57.
This old bond is under a legal cloud, however, because voters weren't asked to approve it. If it were ruled illegal, there's a Plan C, described this way by Finance Department spokesman H. D. Palmer: "Give the car keys and the checkbooks to Wall Street."
