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OT- MONDAY MORNING MEMORANDUM
By Assemblyman Ray Haynes
July 14, 2003

A Caricature of Themselves

I want to let you in on some insider secrets. When we Republicans
get together, our favorite comedic routine is to caricature Democrats'
comments about Republicans. We all chuckle as we mimic things we think
Democrats say about Republicans in private. "Republicans want old people to
die, and children to starve." "Republicans want to kick puppies, and shoot
Bambi." "Republicans want to make kids drink dirty water, and die of
emphysema." And so on. Little did I know that I would actually hear these
words passing the lips of my Democrat friends in the Legislature just this
week.
The Assembly Republicans put up their budget proposal for a vote in
the Legislature. It was a modest thing, motivated by the thought that when
you face unprecedented budget deficits, it might be a good idea to reduce
spending a little. Not much-just 4.2 cents of every dollar we are spending
now. Heck, our proposal was still at least $8 billion more than the state
spent in 1999-2000.
We began with the concept that the state should get the most bang
for its buck. The federal government matches state money put into health
programs. The state legislature has unilaterally created a lot of health
programs that overlap the federal programs, but the state doesn't seek the
federal matching funds. Assembly Republicans thought it would be a good
idea to shift the dollars spent on these overlapping programs to, in
essence, double our money without sacrificing benefits. There would be no
effect on the actual availability of health care; we would just move the
money to a federal program, which was exactly the same as the state program,
where we would get matching money. You would have thought we were killing
kids and old folks in the street.
One Democrat member actually likened us to Stalin, claiming that
murdering people by the thousands was easier than killing them one by one,
because people would be desensitized to the killing. No joke-those words
actually flowed from a Democrat's mouth. Old people were going to die in
the street. We were going to cut off dog food for disabled people; children
were going to end up starving and ignorant. The Speaker of the Assembly
actually said we would make children sick, throw dead foster kids bodies on
the street, and help violent husbands continue to abuse their wives and kids
"rather than ask a millionaire to pay a penny more in taxes."
I don't know about you, but I lived in California in June of 2000,
the year the state spent $66 billion on its state government ($8 billion
less than the Assembly Republican plan). Heck, I was here in 1993, when we
spent $40 billion (about half what we spend now). I don't remember seeing
dead foster kids on the street, or even state police lining old folks up and
shooting them. They spent $77.8 billion this year. We asked them to reduce
spending. That caused lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Four cents of every dollar of state spending-Isn't there at least
that much waste in government? The Democrats say no. Yeah, right! Old
people will die. Yeah, right! Children will starve. Yeah, right!
Polluters will run rampant, and rape, kill, and pillage. Give me a break.
You can't argue with this kind of fear-mongering. It is not
intended to be a rational debate; it is intended to inflame people. You now
know why a budget plan seems so far away. You can't reason with someone who
has no sense of proportion, someone with cartoon characteristics. In this
debate, the Democrats have become caricatures of themselves. You had to see
it to believe it.

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A Budget Plan That Could Work
http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=46992
07-08-03

Despite a $29 billion deficit over the next 12 months, the California state
budget can be balanced without tax increases or even major cuts in essential
government programs. All that's lacking is the political will. That's the
message of the "Citizens' Budget 2003-05: A 10-Point Plan to Balance the
California Budget and Protect Quality-of-Life Priorities." Although released
in April as a joint project of the Reason Institute and The Performance
Institute, two state think tanks, it is being updated today to include the
latest budget developments.

******************************

Jobless Insurance Fund Faces '04 Deficit
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/tue/business/news_1b8jobless.ht
ml
07-08-03

A sustained economic slump and an increase in benefits for the jobless are
depleting the reserves of the state's unemployment insurance fund, which
could leave California employers on the hook for rebuilding it. The state
Employment Development Department said last week that unemployment reserves
- which pay the weekly benefits of jobless workers - stood at $3.56 billion
at the end of last year but are expected to total just $430 million by the
end of this year.

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Jobless-Rate Jump A Warning To State
http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=46867
07-07-03

The 6.4 percent national unemployment rate announced Friday by the U.S.
Department of Labor is a warning to Gov. Gray Davis and the state
Legislature: Get your act together on a budget that doesn't increase taxes.
By itself, the 6.4 percent number for June, up from 6.1 percent in May, is
the highest since 1994. But it is not uncommon for unemployment to rise at
the beginning of an economic recovery, Esmael Adibi, director of the
Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University, told us.

******************************

The Wrong Initiative On The Budget
http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=47122
07-09-03

As California faces a budget deadlock, with Democrats refusing Republican
proposals to make major cuts in government and Republicans refusing to
approve new taxes, some observers are calling for a dubious solution to the
impasse. Liberal interest groups and government employees unions are backing
what they deceptively call the Budget Accountability Act, an initiative that
would reduce the two-thirds vote requirement for passing budgets to a mere
55 percent majority.

******************************

Local Income Tax Proposal Tossed Out
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%257E1865%257E1504543,00.html
07-10-03

State senators Wednesday spared Californians -- for a while anyway -- the
specter of paying city and county income taxes atop state and federal income
taxes. When it became clear a Democrat-dominated committee would reject a
Bay Area lawmaker's bill opening the way for local income taxes, Democrats
advanced just the concept for further scrutiny, perhaps as part of a
comprehensive solution to California's fiscal woes. Republican lawmakers
hailed the unexpected development.

******************************

Writing Still Lagging In Grades 4, 8
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-writing11jul11,1,902553.story?coll=l
a-headlines-california
07-11-03

Most California fourth- and eighth-graders cannot write well-organized
stories or essays, and their grammar and spelling errors hinder them from
communicating clearly on paper, according to a new national test of writing
skills. The Nation's Report Card, issued by the U.S. Department of
Education, found just 23% of the state's fourth- and eighth-graders were
proficient or advanced writers in 2002 - meaning they had solid academic
skills in their grade levels. Eighth-graders also were tested in 1998 and
did no better then.

******************************

Ending the Public School Monopoly
Citizens for a Sound Economy, Dick Armey Co-Chair
http://www.cse.org/informed/issues_template.php/1480.htm
07-10-03

I've been involved in education for my entire life, as a student, as a
parent, as a college economics professor, and as a Congressman. After all my
years, I've come to the conclusion that education is too important to leave
to the public school monopoly.

That's why a bill being considered this week by the U.S. House Government
Reform Committee is so exciting. H.R. 2556, the District of Columbia
Parental Choice Incentive Act of 2003, will authorize at least $15 million
in scholarships to low-income children in the District to help them attend
the private school of their choice. More importantly, these scholarships
would be administered outside of the existing public school monopoly, and
will be controlled by the student and his or her parents.

******************************

Workers' comp a premium problem
Skyrocketing costs have state system spiraling into crisis

<<...>>
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/news/news_1n13workers.html
July 13, 2003

Mike Abrahamson is thinking about calling it quits. Since it opened in
1986, his janitorial services company has grown steadily, always returning a
tidy profit. But this year, South Coast Building Services began operating
in the red. It isn't the faltering economy. In fact, sales have been better
than ever. What's changed is the cost of workers' compensation insurance for
Abrahamson's 1,000 employees. And it changed a lot. In 2001, Abrahamson
said, South Coast Building Services paid $500,000 to insure its workers for
on-the-job injuries. A year later, the company's bill more than tripled to
$1.7 million. This year, the tab nearly tripled again to $4.8 million,
enough to erode the firm's profits on its $33 million in revenue.

******************************

Richmond shaken by rise in violence
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/14/MN214386.DTL
07-14-03

Police and city leaders say the upsurge in violence in the gritty city of
102,000 is troubling. The city's homicide rate eclipses that of Oakland,
which has the highest homicide rate of major cities in California. The same
factors driving Oakland's rising homicides exist in Richmond to its north:
many ex-cons without jobs and a rampant drug trade.

******************************

Dear Cost Of 'Cheap' Labor For State
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/6255820.htm
07-08-03

There is no simple or single explanation for the kind of gaping budget
deficit currently facing California. However, it would be naive in the
extreme to ignore the impact of large-scale legal and illegal immigration on
a $38.2 billion shortfall in this year's state budget. It is virtually
impossible to set an exact dollar figure on the cost of immigration because
money flows in and out of state coffers in so many different ways and,
because the issue is so politically sensitive, most politicians eschew
efforts to even come up with cost estimates.

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Full legislative text, analyses and votes are available on the State web
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Assemblyman Haynes' office can be reached at [phone] in Temecula
or in the Capitol at [phone]
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