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By PETE GOLIS
The slow and unsteady dismantling of public services continued last week. At every level of government in California, elected officials continued to grapple with a menu of unpalatable choices.
Pete Golis.
These spending cuts manage to be shortsighted and inevitable at the same time because state and local government expanded at a rapid pace — and then was slow to respond when revenues didn’t keep up.
At a recent gathering, Robert Eyler, the Sonoma State University economist, used colorful language that aptly describes the work product of state government and the hardships now being inflicted on all of us.
“We’re building a large sandwich of poop,” he said, “and we’re all going to have to take a nibble.”
In his defense, let me mention that professor Eyler didn’t know I would be quoting him for a Sunday morning breakfast crowd.
As this train wreck proceeds, one interest group or another continues to insist that its favorite cause deserves to be the great exception: Whatever you do, don’t cut the program I care about.
This is the problem, isn’t it? In our politics, it’s convenient to pretend that budgets are not a zero-sum game. There’s always more money where that came from, right?
In Santa Rosa, lawmakers and park advocates pressed the state to back down from plans to close Annadel State Park.
Yes, Annadel is a treasure. I love it, too.
But if he were here, Gov. Jerry Brown would want me to ask: What would you cut instead? Education? Health care for low-income children? Home care for seniors? The state universities? Support for local government?
Single-interest politics is the old politics, and once upon a time, it worked. Now it only gets in the way of recognizing that our world has changed, there will be sacrifice all around, and if we want something, we need to figure out a way to pay for it.
When it comes to Annadel, we can afford it. We don’t know how many people use the park every year, but it’s safe to say that if we had a dollar or two for every hiker, jogger and mountain biker, we wouldn’t have a problem.
We only need to figure out an effective and fair way to organize the faithful, recognizing that some things can’t be free anymore.
From parks to the maintenance of hundreds of miles of rural roads, we’ve been conditioned to expect that there will always be enough money to pay for everything.
Now, not so much. Globalization and technology have turned our economy upside-down.
And the pain of these economic troubles is worse than it needs to be because a government dominated by special interests pretended that nothing had to change — that it was OK, in good times and bad, to let spending race ahead of income.
None of this was difficult to predict. In 2005, here’s what one columnist — me — wrote about the latest delusional budget from Sacramento: “One more time, the state’s leaders will have postponed the reckoning, enacting a budget that fails to respond to a long-term, structural deficit or to confront all the ways that the state’s most fundamental problems are getting short shrift.”
That 2005 column went on to blame the state Legislature for botching efforts “to reform a top-heavy state government and to repair a pension system that cannot be sustained over time …”
Sound familiar?
You should feel sorry for the county supervisors, city council members and school trustees left to clean up the mess. They will be blamed and vilified and left to feel guilty because they know these spending cuts will harm people in need.
None of these decisions makes sense — except that when you can’t pay your bills, you have no choice.
UCLA economists last week predicted that the jobless rate in California will remain in the double digits into 2013. No one is surprised. The drumbeat of news about a jobless recovery continues. And if you move around your town, you can feel it.
An optimist might say that at least elected officials are starting to act like adults.
Still, Santa Rosa City Manager Kathy Millison worried out loud that human nature and political pressure will tempt her City Council to delay the reckoning one more time.
The question is, she said: “Do we have the fortitude to make tough decisions to get our house in order?”
We are left to hope for moments of courage that recognize that revenues are declining and government has maxed out its credit cards. (California already ranks last among the 50 states in creditworthiness.)
None of this will be fun. For the elected officials doing the right things, there will be no banquets or tributes. But if we learned anything in the last six years, it’s that ducking the hard choices only makes it worse.
Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat. Email him at golispd@gmail.com.
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We’ve run out of other people’s money.
Ironically,it appears that the best way to dismantle liberal governance is to let it dismantle itself.
Unfortunately,the damage done will take years to fix.
I keep hearing a few people beat the drum that cops are overpaid. Someone tried to kill a Deputy today. Fortunately for the Deputy, he was quicker on the draw and survived. You couldn’t pay me enough to do that dirty job.
The special interest group Mr Golis fails to mention is public safety which controls well over 50% of all available funds and contributes very little in the way of cuts to the budget.
Cutting Annadel funding is a drop in the bucket compared to the outrageous salaries of cops.
Former Subscriber-Pete Golis is NOTHING like Anthony Weiner. It’s a lousy thing to say.
Pete is actually a little too conservative for my liking. But compared to the current PD agenda he is a socialist. The PD has attacked public workers and their unions for years now. Fair and balanced they aren’t. The PD is NOT reporting both sides and that irritates me to no end. The PD has laid off many of their own employees but I’ll bet the managers are still at their jobs with their high salaries. In that respect the PD is no different than the county or city.
Pete Golis clearly doesn’t understand the concept of money.
When you have it, you can spend it.
When you don’t have it, you can’t spend.
Government cut backs have nothing at all to do with being “shortsighted.” Thats an absurd, unrealistic, and foolish statement to make.
Peter Golis ?
Who is he, anyway?
Oh, wait. Like FORMER Congressman Anthony Weiner, Golis just can’t fade away gracefully. He has to keep coming back to haunt the PD readers.
Hey, Pete. Go away. We’re doing just fine without your never ending love fest with the public sector.
Thank you Pete for saying it like it is and having the guts to remind us once again that our elected officials need to change the politics and not keep the status quo from outdated methods and modes of operation! I was appalled and disgusted by the Santa Rosa City Council’s decision to raise the budget for public safety and to add positions based on fear. As I read todays editorial it made me feel sick because another budget was swept under the rug while the citizens are left with the rot that will likely result. Hardly anyone came to the CC meeting and it is no wonder. I have talked with some people and they are afraid to go against Fire or Police and instead of the majority wondering why or taking the time to listen the the citizens who write or blog, they went ahead and sold their souls again… The mayor should not be able to vote on the issue of public safety budgets period. It is a conflict of interest and the City Attorney should be advising as such but is looking out for the overabundance of attorneys who are also highly paid and have a direct link with public safety. The mayor is living off of a huge pension and looking out for his buddies in public safety. As for the rest of the majority, they told us prior to being elected that they met with the public safety unions…they came through on their promises though…but not to the citizens..but to the unions…No surprise but disgusting nevertheless.
Thank you for keeping the story real and for not giving in to the pressure from the unions…. Why oh why are we giving the highest paid more and more with no end in sight? It is all connected to the Charter for the City. The charter amendment that linked public safety’s wages with other cities and forever put Santa Rosa on the never ending “raise our wages” based on other cities that are doing the same thing so they are always “entitled” to whatever the other city’s (bay area cities) get with no end in sight. When the Charter amendment for Binding Arbitration was enacted there wasn’t even a rebuttal from the city. Let’s look at the charter again…with citizens (not only politicians) and re-creat a realistic budget that will be sustainable! How many more ways can we say that we want changes to how the government balances the budget? No vito power….grrrrrieving and grumpy!
How about getting rid of about 30% of the state funded agencies? Start with BCDC?
Pete,
Excellent take on the problem. It may sound trite, but government must learn to live the way the rest of us do–buying only what it can afford. We already have pay as you go in our society. If I want to go to SF, I pay the bridge toll. If I want to camp, I pay campground fees. Annadel et al should not be much different. Policing such venues may be problematic. But, willingness to explore solutions is the first step in the 12 step program of ridding ourselves of the addiction to spending money we don’t have.
You are right. Special interest is amock. Police in Santa Rosa make 100 plus a year. Teachers make 70k and work maybe 170 days a year as opposed to the 260 plus of the general labor here.
The day of reckoning is here. And no one likes the results.
Neither does anyone who has lost a house, filed bankruptcy, lost a job or a love.
Money does not buy you happiness but pays civil service workers better than the general poulation. Why not just equal it out and call it a day.
Garrulous Pete: ninety-nine dire observations and not one pragmatic solution. Face the underlying fact: forty years of liberal governance and journalism in the state of California have left us with what?
I would like Mr. Golis or any of the political experts and the Press Democrat to tell me why it is that any or all of these cash strapped city governments can’t just start repealing their various spending resolutions in reverse chronological order until they reach a level covered by the tax revenue coming in.
Whatever the latest thing they authorized to spend money on, repeal that first. Then repeal the second latest thing they authorized and so on until they aren’t spending more than they have.
Seems to me that you can fairly and equitably cut down the expenses with this simple method and cut the least important things because the most important things were expenses they’ve had the longest.
Cut tihs, cut that, cut every social program, but don’t you touch my bank account! Geez, it seems all you guys can come up with is austerity for working people and subsidies for the rich. There is plenty of money in Sonoma County, and you should be ashamed of what you’re doing to honest, hard-working people.
I don’t buy all this “it’s the unions” or “it’s public sector workers” nonsense. I still believe in a “more perfect union,” (see the constitution), not a more perfect high-roller holiday. I repeat, there is a lot of money in Sonoma County. They’re just not sharing any of it with the people who help create it. The “income gap” will have a much worse name if it continues.
Until the public demands tough choices be made and supports those choices–real, not fake, spending cuts or higher taxes–why should our elected leaders to anything different? To endorse hard choices today is to guarantee a loss at the next election.
Bottom line, the public isn’t ready to face the consequences of for years living beyond its means. After all, higher pensions, numerous billion dollar bond measures, and expanded social welfare have been popular.
Sadly, the bill has arrived. That it isn’t popular is not surprising. It looks like things need to get worse before they’re likely to get better.
Hey Golis, when did you have a come to Jesus revelation? I never thought I would read an article in the Press Democrat that acurately spelled out the government crisis that faces all of us. And yet, here it is in the heart of one of the most liberal lands in the United States.
You have described the problem, now how will it be fixed? I do not believe it will be fixed before there is a restructing at the state government level and the fiscal crisis closes local government social and environmental programs in many localities including Sonoma County.
The public unions have to be brought to heel and their power over local and state politicans neutrallized. It won’t be pretty. The politicans will have to begin to use common sense before there is a fix. Too bad there are no statesmen in Sacramento or in Sonoma County.
I especially liked the line “if we had a dollar or two for every hiker, jogger and mountain biker, we wouldn’t have a problem.”
That was a nice touch. As someone who pays big state income taxes, the sales tax, all the B.S. fees, etc., those trails at Annadel should be paved in gold bricks.
This all reminds me of the lyrics from CCR’s Fortunate Son. “And when you ask them, “How much should we give?” Ooh, they only answer More! more! more!”