CA Gov. Brown Provides No Funding for Rainy Day Reserve Fund

While members of the sycophantic media praise California Governor Jerry Brown for his supposed budget miracle, Brown is risking the state’s budget by refusing to write in any funding for a financial reserve. Typically, the California budget contains funding for reserve – a sort of rainy day fund. Brown’s budget however, does not have such a requirement. While California stands of $5 billion of outstanding bonds, then, it stands on no cash buffer. Should California tax receipts come in lower than expected, the state will immediately fall into the red again, necessitating precisely the cuts Brown told Californians they could avoid by raising their own taxes.

Even the liberal Los Angeles Times finds this somewhat troubling, reporting, “California, however, has a tradition of boom-and-bust budgeting. When times are good, surplus tax dollars are often used to boost the state payroll and expand government programs. When the economy craters, state leaders reach for their red pens to close deficits.” According to Brown’s unrealistic assessments, tax revenues in the state should rise for four consecutive years. Bills coming due will amount to $28 billion by June. Since 2004, lawmakers hae provided for the fund just two times.

Democrats in the legislature say funding the reserve is counterproductive – if there’s money to be put into the reserve, there’s money to spend! Republicans are pushing for a referendum that would force the state to fund the reserve, and make it difficult for the state to steal cash from it. But Democrats are trying to stymie it. A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (D-Los Angeles) explained, “this measure has flaws that need to be corrected or it will lead to major cuts to schools, higher education and healthcare, which is just what Republicans would like.”

Democrats, it appears, would just like to continue spending other people’s money until no one will be left from whom the state can borrow.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).