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Where's the money go? Voters. California loves its populist bullshit. The majority of the California budget is already allocated via all sorts of enticing ba

Where's the money go? Voters. California loves its populist bullshit. The majority of the California budget is already allocated via all sorts of enticing ballot box measures that are powered by unfunded mandates. There's comically little discretion involved. Per Prop 98 K-12 education is the single biggest chunk. That sounds great until you realize that on lean years you can't cut K-12 funding at all. https://ebudget.ca.gov/2022-23/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf https://ebudget.ca.gov/2022-23/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryChar...

oneoff786 5y ago
That still doesn’t sound that bad?
ccn0p 5y ago
ya and the problem is much of the surplus is driven by a tech and real estate boom that may not continue unlike the spending.
User23 5y ago
Also a huge amount of that funding is captured by the administrative bureaucracy and never gets anywhere near a classroom. The state is spending around $375,000 per year on a class of 25 students and $450,000 per year on a class of 30 students. I picked those numbers based on this[1]. Teacher salaries range from about $50,000 to about $100,000[2]. Let's assume benefits and other costs of employment double that. With those conservative assumptions, a small class has $175,000 or $7000 per student per year that isn't being spent on instruction. I seriously doubt California schools are providing students with $7,000 worth of supplies every year. I'm confident that a significant percentage if not a majority of California parents would prefer to get a $15,000 tax credit per school age child per year than the education the public school system is offering. For a family of four, that's an additional $30,000 in after tax money. That's enough to be a single income household even in California. [1] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_fltable06_t1s.asp https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_fltable06_t... [2] https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp
ggm 5y ago
Cutting K-12 would be insane. "lean" is an odd word. MMT pretty much says there are no lean years, only different degrees of willingness to pay, now or later. You really think CA can't "afford" to spend largesse on its citizens?
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  MMT says that about governments that issue the currency their debt is denominated in. California doesn't issue currency, and most states are constitutionally forbidden from running a budget deficit. California has a particular problem due to Prop 13, which forces it to rely more heavily on income tax, which is much more income elastic than property tax. Any year with a recession hits their budget much worse than most other states. Conversely, they do a lot better during booms, but since voters hate states having rainy day funds and prefer getting the excess refunded, that doesn't help, either.
  - ggm 5y ago
    Ah. deficit funding forbidden, is the bit (non US resident) I didn't know. So they have to bank locally sourced "wealth" to spread out when times are harder? then I guess they have to live inside the rules. Where I live, the states accrue a lot of public sector debt, and nobody cares. Qld is carrying $105b of debt, rising to $125b by 2025. This is outside of federal public sector debt, theres a huge royalty income, and state tax raising powers as well as a GST/VAT national settlement, so its pretty well understood income exists to cover the debt.
    - inferiorhuman 5y ago
      Lean's not as odd as it might seem. California is still very much a gold rush state that's addicted to the boom-bust cycle. For newbies I like to recommend Peter Schrag's book Paradise Lost. In it he analyzes California's problems through the lens of Prop 13 and the big cultural shift California saw in the late 70s. In broad strokes there are a bunch of things to weigh: - California's got an incredibly powerful initiative process (e.g. Prop 13, both Prop 8s) - Prop 13 capped one of the main sources of tax income (property tax) and made it significantly more difficult to raise taxes at both the state and local level by requiring a 2/3 majority. - California is no stranger to issuing debt (and unlike Texas we're not antagonizing the banks that underwite the bonds), and I believe bonds only require a simple majority at the ballot box. Look at Washington state if you want to see absolute fucking lunacy with bonds. - California is not immune to recession - To avoid raising taxes initiatives often promise things for free by carving things out of the general fund - As a strong proponent of public schools: California public schools are an absolute cluster fuck worthy of a few epics. Prop 98 forbids reducing the funding for K-12 schools even as revenue declines. So spending 25% of your budget on K-12 schools doesn't seem bad, but if revenue falls that dollar amount is not allowed to shrink. The two university systems are unfathomably top heavy – to everyone's detriment. Even if you could get 2/3 of all California voters to agree to raise taxes, it's going to be earmarked for something. And that's how you get death by a thousand cuts. Use fees, special tax districts (and all of their associated overhead), etc. It's how you get random taxes to pay for unrelated things. For instance, Schwarzenegger cut the vehicle registration fee (sounds reasonable, right?). To make up for that he doubled tuition at community colleges (note: at that point California public unis/colleges weren't allowed to charge tuition so it was simply called a "fee").

oneoff786 5y ago

That still doesn’t sound that bad?

ccn0p 5y ago

ya and the problem is much of the surplus is driven by a tech and real estate boom that may not continue unlike the spending.

User23 5y ago

Also a huge amount of that funding is captured by the administrative bureaucracy and never gets anywhere near a classroom. The state is spending around $375,000 per year on a class of 25 students and $450,000 per year on a class of 30 students. I picked those numbers based on this[1]. Teacher salaries range from about $50,000 to about $100,000[2]. Let's assume benefits and other costs of employment double that. With those conservative assumptions, a small class has $175,000 or $7000 per student per year that isn't being spent on instruction. I seriously doubt California schools are providing students with $7,000 worth of supplies every year. I'm confident that a significant percentage if not a majority of California parents would prefer to get a $15,000 tax credit per school age child per year than the education the public school system is offering. For a family of four, that's an additional $30,000 in after tax money. That's enough to be a single income household even in California. [1] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_fltable06_t1s.asp https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_fltable06_t... [2] https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp

ggm 5y ago

Cutting K-12 would be insane. "lean" is an odd word. MMT pretty much says there are no lean years, only different degrees of willingness to pay, now or later. You really think CA can't "afford" to spend largesse on its citizens?

nonameiguess 5y ago
MMT says that about governments that issue the currency their debt is denominated in. California doesn't issue currency, and most states are constitutionally forbidden from running a budget deficit. California has a particular problem due to Prop 13, which forces it to rely more heavily on income tax, which is much more income elastic than property tax. Any year with a recession hits their budget much worse than most other states. Conversely, they do a lot better during booms, but since voters hate states having rainy day funds and prefer getting the excess refunded, that doesn't help, either.
- ggm 5y ago
  Ah. deficit funding forbidden, is the bit (non US resident) I didn't know. So they have to bank locally sourced "wealth" to spread out when times are harder? then I guess they have to live inside the rules. Where I live, the states accrue a lot of public sector debt, and nobody cares. Qld is carrying $105b of debt, rising to $125b by 2025. This is outside of federal public sector debt, theres a huge royalty income, and state tax raising powers as well as a GST/VAT national settlement, so its pretty well understood income exists to cover the debt.
  - inferiorhuman 5y ago
    Lean's not as odd as it might seem. California is still very much a gold rush state that's addicted to the boom-bust cycle. For newbies I like to recommend Peter Schrag's book Paradise Lost. In it he analyzes California's problems through the lens of Prop 13 and the big cultural shift California saw in the late 70s. In broad strokes there are a bunch of things to weigh: - California's got an incredibly powerful initiative process (e.g. Prop 13, both Prop 8s) - Prop 13 capped one of the main sources of tax income (property tax) and made it significantly more difficult to raise taxes at both the state and local level by requiring a 2/3 majority. - California is no stranger to issuing debt (and unlike Texas we're not antagonizing the banks that underwite the bonds), and I believe bonds only require a simple majority at the ballot box. Look at Washington state if you want to see absolute fucking lunacy with bonds. - California is not immune to recession - To avoid raising taxes initiatives often promise things for free by carving things out of the general fund - As a strong proponent of public schools: California public schools are an absolute cluster fuck worthy of a few epics. Prop 98 forbids reducing the funding for K-12 schools even as revenue declines. So spending 25% of your budget on K-12 schools doesn't seem bad, but if revenue falls that dollar amount is not allowed to shrink. The two university systems are unfathomably top heavy – to everyone's detriment. Even if you could get 2/3 of all California voters to agree to raise taxes, it's going to be earmarked for something. And that's how you get death by a thousand cuts. Use fees, special tax districts (and all of their associated overhead), etc. It's how you get random taxes to pay for unrelated things. For instance, Schwarzenegger cut the vehicle registration fee (sounds reasonable, right?). To make up for that he doubled tuition at community colleges (note: at that point California public unis/colleges weren't allowed to charge tuition so it was simply called a "fee").