The Freedom Minute

Why Can’t LA Times Columnists Get it Right?

In a recent column entitled, “California Budget Fixes On May 19 Ballot Are Mostly Shams and Frauds”, Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times rails against the six propositions, 1A through 1F, that will appear on the ballot for the May 19th special election. He’s right that the propositions are all fraudulent and misleading. They deserve to go down in defeat. But Hiltzik’s column is mostly wrong as to his analysis of our current budget crisis as well as what’s actually contained in the propositions themselves.

First, Hiltzik gets the facts wrong about Proposition 1A’s effect on the budget. He wrongly states that 1A “limits budget growth to a formula based on population growth and inflation”. If only this were true. Unfortunately it’s not. Prop 1A limits future spending to historic revenues and economic growth. This means that there really is no spending limit, because all the legislature need do to continue their runaway spending is continue to increase revenue, i.e. increase taxes. That’s a big difference from limiting spending to population growth and inflation. One would think that a columnist for a major newspaper would be able to get this simple fact right. Granted, the actual text of the proposition is so convoluted as to be almost incomprehensible, but all Hiltzik had to do was read the analysis written by the state’s independent legislative analyst which appears here, just like I did. But perhaps that was just too much trouble.

Or perhaps Hiltzik simply likes tax increases so much that he’s intentionally misleading his readers. What other explanation could there be when he calls the largest state tax increase in the history of the United States, “modest tax increases”. Or when he suggests that California’s budget woes come not from legislative over spending but rather from the 2/3 supermajority requirement for budget bills, which is pretty much the only thing standing in the way of even greater state fiscal irresponsibility. In fact, Hiltzik goes so far as to claim that eliminating this 2/3 supermajority requirement will somehow magically solve all our budget problems. Of course that’s only true if you believe we can simply tax our way out of this mess and “a tiny cadre of legislators”, as Hiltzik calls them, are standing in the way. But anyone with even a basic knowledge of economics knows this to be a fallacy. Ever increasing spending coupled with ever increasing taxes to pay for it, drives away the tax base, reduces revenue in the long run and eventually destroys an economy. Not to mention, it’s inherently unfair. But again, Hiltzik disagrees since he believes “there’s nothing inherently wrong with tobacco taxes or surcharges on the wealthy”. With an attitude such as this, it’s no wonder Hiltzik didn’t bother to do his homework.

But, Michael Hiltzik’s most egregious error is that he fails to mention anywhere in his analysis of the propositions that if 1A passes, the massive tax increase recently passed by the legislature will be extended an additional one to two years. That translates into an additional $16 billion in taxes levied on the people of California. But apparently, Michael Hiltzik didn’t think this fact important enough to make anything more than an obscure tangential reference buried deep in his text. Nor did he, in a column about the propositions being “shams and frauds”, mention that 1A’s official title and summary, written by our illustrious elected officials, as well as the TV and radio ads promoting its passage, also fail to mention this important fact. And that’s the biggest sham and fraud of all.

April 28th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Ballot Initiatives, Election, State Government | one comment