☆ Joffe: Mahan's spending plan has some strong ideas, but is limited in its scope
Gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan’s spending plan for CA does a good job of diagnosing California’s fiscal maladies, but his proposed treatment is not enough to cure the patient, according to Marc Joffe. An Opportunity Now exclusive reaction.
To Mahan’s credit, he breaks from Gavin Newsom’s effort to gaslight us into believing California is a low tax state. Instead, he opens with the truth: “We’re one of the highest-taxed states in the nation, and state spending has far outpaced inflation—even as our population has stagnated.”
He also offers useful process reforms, including implementing a statewide performance management system and launching an independent performance review following a model Texas used successfully in the 1990s. Requiring both the executive and legislative branches to respond to State Auditor findings is another worthwhile reform.
Another idea, zero-base budgeting, is more questionable. Although the idea of making every agency justify every dollar of spending each year sounds appealing, President Jimmy Carter’s attempt to implement zero-base budgeting at the federal level produced disappointing results. When an agency's existence is evaluated by the very bureaucrats whose livelihoods depend on it, performance metrics can be manipulated to justify increased funding.
More concerning, Mahan’s plan does not call for any specific cuts. Process reform can only take us so far. To seriously bend California’s cost curve, an aspiring Governor should decide which programs are not appropriate functions of state government.
For example, unlike most states, California funds free healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Is this program, which has helped bust the state budget, appropriate? Mahan’s plan is silent.
Same thing with respect to California’s high-speed rail boondoggle. Like all other leading Democratic candidates, Mahan has declined to call for eliminating this project, even though it will require tens of billions (or even hundreds of billions) of new expenditures that the state has yet to fund.
So, while Mahan’s spending proposal sounds good, and includes several worthwhile reforms, it ultimately does not rise to the challenge of halting and reversing California’s out-of-control state spending.
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