Experts Expound

“A budget deal appears to be in the offing: sales tax hike, school cuts, VLF increase, spending cap. Is there reason to think this budget will do the trick, or will it be more smoke and mirrors?”

It’s the best the sausage-making could come up with – and the LAO will, predictably, hate it.

It will pass and average Californias will be broadly hurt by the tax increases.

You couldn’t find more smoke and mirrors at a hookah lounge filled with carnies.

Smoke and mirrors or just a bunch of politicians moving their lips?

This is smoke, mirrors, recalls, and primaries. All the things that make politics fun.

I think it will go a long way to starting to do the trick.  It took a long time to get to this place and systemic reform is the only way to avoid it again.  First, we have to dig out of the quagmire.  They can’t leave it once it is done.  Must address the root problems.  I hope there is bi-partisan will to do that.  Deals lining up for the ballot could put us right back in it.  Here’s hoping we have statesmen and women who have a spine and are willing to stand up to their sure-to-be-unhappy base.
    
I think it’s high time we stop disparaging smoke and mirrors. If everyone would quit looking at the little man behind the curtain, we could go back to the fantasy economy and lift all boats on a rising tide of phony baloney balance sheets. We need a happy balance between too many mirrors and too much reality.

It’s hard to imagine there being enough political will for there to be more than a partial solution for this year only.

It won’t be smoke and mirrors but it may not do the trick either…..

These proposals raise real money – not smoke and mirrors. Whether any Republican will vote for them remains to be seen. On Wednesday morning, there were no GOP votes for these proposals as stand-alones. Republicans wanted to see the entire package – including the cuts – before throwing three of their members on their swords to vote for this.

It will only work if a spending cap is enacted at the ballot.  If spending growth doesn’t slow, then we’ll be back to more taxes and gimmicks next year.

It will be largely a legitimate budget with some smoke and mirrors. Count on 70 percent real and 30 percent gimmickry.
             
Time will tell whether it is the real deal. But, until then, the public – if your description is true – will surely embrace with open arms higher taxes on purchases, climbing gasoline prices and vehicle registrations. On the last point, will the governor giveth reductions and taketh them away?

The bigger problem is that whatever the final product of these negotiations,  the budget is not a static document; revenues from the PIT, sales tax and corporate taxes will likely continue to decline this year, and more draconian cuts or tax and fee increases will be needed before we get out of the upcoming fiscal year. As we say in Yiddish, we’ve got tsouris (big time troubles!). 

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