A reader writes:
"California's problem is mainly on the spending side. If we stuck to a budget increase of inflation plus population growth over the last 10 years, we would probably be in fairly decent shape."
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California's problem is spending? That's a myth
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, May 30, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 2 inches; 79 words Type of Material: Correction
Hiltzik column: A column by Michael Hiltzik in Thursday's Section A on the California budget said the state's population grew about 30% from 1998 through 2009. The correct figure, based on population estimates from the state Department of Finance, is about 15%. However, the finding by the Legislative Analyst's Office that the state budget remained in line with population growth and inflation during that period, on which the column was based, relied on the correct multiplier of population growth.
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Sounds right, doesn't it? The same perfectly reasonable supposition was expressed in scores of e-mails I received following last week's budget ballot debacle.
Indeed, the idea that California's budget has been out of control as measured against inflation and population growth is a deeply cherished talking point in the debate over the state's fiscal deficit.
Unfortunately, it turns out to be yet another infectious myth. The truth is that over the last 10 years, California's spending has tracked population growth and price increases almost to the penny.
This finding comes from the nonpartisan legislative analyst's office, which subjects the state budget to more careful scrutiny than almost anyone else in Sacramento.
Analyzing the 2008-09 budget bill last year, the legislative analyst determined that since 1998-99, spending in the general fund and state special funds -- the latter comes from special levies like gasoline and tobacco taxes -- had risen to $128.8 billion from $72.6 billion, or 77%.
During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state's population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget's growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.
My calculations show that the combined growth factors would have allowed the budget to grow even more. But for the purpose of argument, let's use the legislative analyst's more conservative number. That punctures the notion that the state has been on a drunken spending spree out of proportion to these common multipliers.
A couple of caveats are in order. These budget figures don't include federally backed spending. Gov. Schwarzenegger's '08-09 budget included $56 billion in federal funds, mostly for health and social services programs such as Medi-Cal.
Nor do they include spending of bond proceeds or the various borrowing scams the governor and Legislature implemented, such as dipping into local government coffers.
