Think you could fix California's budget woes?
SACRAMENTO — California's latest budget deficit is approaching $20 billion, and the state's natives are growing restless. In poll after poll, approval of elected officials sinks lower, and there's a rising cry to send the bums home and let citizens call the shots.
But would we do any better? The Mercury News recently asked five people from different perspectives to confront the same apocalyptic choices as our lawmakers by tackling an online, nonpartisan simulation called the California Budget Challenge.
Closing California's budget gap, it turned out, was easier said than done.
Given the gamut of policy options from prison cuts to higher income taxes — but none of the quick-fix gimmickry lawmakers often resort to — each panelist did in minutes what polarized Sacramento often can't do in months: They held their noses and made hard choices that sometimes conflicted with their core ideals.
Debbie Stephens Stauffer, a Democrat, pulled the plug on welfare grants to help pay for a $19.5 billion boost in K-12 education. Kris Rowberry, a Republican, cut into social services but still agreed to swallow more than $10 billion in new tax revenues rather than slash even deeper.
But even though the panelists were freed from the Capitol's partisan noise and won't face the wrath of constituents, they still struggled to compete the task. Only one offered a menu of reductions and revenues that both closed the deficit and let
him sleep at night. The rest all left at least a piece of the deficit on the table.
