SACRAMENTO, Calif. /California Newswire/ — Prepared Text of Governor Schwarzenegger’s Joint Legislative Session Budget Address: Speaker Bass, Senate Leader Steinberg, Assemblyman Blakeslee, Senator Hollingsworth, my fellow Constitutional Officers and my fellow servants of the people:
Thank you for the gracious invitation to address you today and to address the people of California.
Today I want to talk to you about our financial crisis.
Three months ago, the members of this body came together set aside their ideological differences and did what they believed was best for California.
We solved $36 billion of a $42 billion deficit.
But as you know part of our budget agreement required us by law to go back to the people for approval right at the time the people wanted to send Sacramento a powerful message.
And that message was clear:
Do your job. Don’t come to us with these complex issues. Live within your means. Get rid of the waste and inefficiencies. And don’t raise taxes.
Now as I stand here today we are in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
In the past 18 months one-third of the world’s wealth has vanished.
And because of that and because of California’s outdated and volatile tax system, our revenues have dropped 27 percent from last year.
We are now back to the same level of revenues we had in 2003.
And when you adjust for inflation and population, we’re back to the level of the late 90’s.
Today, just three months after our February budget we once again face a $24 billion deficit.
California’s day of reckoning is here.
In order to deal with our limited amount of money, I have proposed some dramatic changes in my May Revision.
Those spending cuts represent much more than the hard decisions necessary to balance our budget.
They represent a transformation of what services Sacramento can provide and how those services are delivered.
The immediate task before us is to cut spending to the money available.
And we have no time to waste.
The Controller has told us we have 14 days to act or California is at risk of running out of cash.
I have already used my executive authority to reduce the state’s payroll.
And I have proposed the necessary cuts to the three largest areas of our budget: education, health care and prisons.
I know the consequences of these cuts are not just dollars.
I see the faces behind those dollars…I see the children whose teacher will be laid-off…
I see the Alzheimer’s’ patients losing some of their In-Home Support Services…
I see the firefighters and police officers who will lose their jobs.
People come up to me all the time, pleading, “Governor, please don’t cut my program.”
They tell me how the cuts will affect them and their loved ones.
I see the pain in their eyes and hear the fear in their voice.
It’s an awful feeling. But we have no choice.
Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up.
I know for many of you, these will be the hardest votes you will ever make.
But the people sent us here to lead not only in times of prosperity but also in times of crisis.
We must make these cuts and live within our means, because what is the alternative.
If we don’t act, the state will simply run out of money and go insolvent.
We are not Washington. We cannot print money. We cannot run up trillion-dollar deficits. We can only spend what we have.
That is the harsh but simple reality.
At the same time we cannot make this budget just about cuts.
There are also some great opportunities for structural reform. Winston Churchill said a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
So let’s use this crisis as an opportunity to make government more efficient and find innovative ways to stretch taxpayer dollars.
Can we find a way to provide these services at a lower cost?
For example, I have asked our State Board of Education to make textbooks available in digital formats.
We expect the first science and math books to be digital by this fall.
If we expand this to more textbooks, schools could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
That’s hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to hire teachers and reduce class sizes.
In so many areas of government there are opportunities like this for reform.
All we have to do is go out and seize them.
Spending on prisons has nearly doubled in the past five years.
We spend $49,000 per inmate, per year. The national average is $32,000. Other states have privately-run correctional facilities that operate at half the cost. Why can’t we?
We must also restructure the relationship between state and local government.
We all hear from local officials about the heavy hand of Sacramento.
If we are providing fewer resources, we have an obligation to cut most of the strings and mandates, and to get out of the way.
Right now we are cutting billions of dollars from schools.
So shouldn’t we give districts more freedom and flexibility and not tie their hands with strict rules like who is allowed to mow the lawn or fix the roof or do the plumbing?
I am also proposing once again to eliminate and consolidate more than a dozen state departments, boards and commissions.
These include the Waste Management Board, the Court Reporters Board, the Department of
Boating and Waterways and the Inspection and Maintenance Review Committee.
There is absolutely no reason to hold onto these redundant boards in this crisis.
We should not and I will not cut a dollar from education, a dollar from health care, a dollar from public safety, or a dollar from state parks without first cutting the Waste Management Board.
Every dollar we save from those boards and commissions is a dollar that can be used to help our most vulnerable citizens.
I am also proposing to sell off state property because Sacramento should not be in the real estate business, especially when we are in a fiscal crisis.
Now I know the money we receive for this property won’t go directly to our General Fund.
It will go to pay off debt.
But that lowers our debt payments which does help our General Fund.
Everywhere I go, I hear stories about families selling off their boats and motorcycles to make ends meet. They have garage sales and yard sales.
They know that you don’t keep a boat at the dock when you can’t put food on the table.
All these proposals have been talked about for years, yet they never get done.
I remember in 2004, I talked about blowing up the boxes, and consolidating agencies….
But now we are in a crisis. We have run out of excuses. We have run out of time. And the people have run out of patience.
Earlier this year, we began consolidating all of our IT departments.
My proposal to consolidate all of our energy functions is in legislation before you right now.
So is a proposal to consolidate the departments that oversee financial institutions.
And I will soon send you legislation to merge our tax collection operations.
These are all actions that we can take on our own to save money and make government more efficient.
We don’t have to bother the people.
We don’t need permission from the federal government.
I know that Senator Steinberg is talking about reforming and restructuring relationships between state and local government.
Senator Hollingsworth and the Republicans have some great ideas about performance-based budgeting.
In July, we should receive the bipartisan recommendations from our Tax Modernization Commission.
This will be a tremendous opportunity to make our revenues more reliable and less volatile and help the state avoid the boom and bust budgets that have brought us here today.
Let’s all work together to make it happen.
Now I don’t expect every single one of these reforms to happen within the next 14 days.
But we can certainly get them done before this body adjourns for Summer Recess on July 17th.
Now there are other big reforms that I continue to believe strongly in like a spending cap and rainy day fund in order to further stabilize our revenues.
But I’m not going to talk about that today because those reforms require voter approval.
And as we learned a few weeks ago, the voters will never trust us on those issues until we show that we can do our jobs in this Capitol and make the tough decisions.
There is no doubt that the challenges before us are enormous.
They will test our will, our resolve and our leadership.
Many of the things I am proposing are despised by the special interests that rely on the status quo. And we are all familiar with the interest groups and their army of lobbyists.
But let’s not forget, it is our job to lobby on behalf of the people and the great state of California.
In the coming days and weeks, the entire nation will be watching how we react and respond.
Last week, Paul Krugman from the New York Times wrote that California is in a state of paralysis…and that our political system has failed to rise to the occasion.
People are writing California off.
They are talking about the end of the California Dream.
They don’t believe that we in this room have the courage and determination to do what needs to be done or that the state is manageable.
Let’s prove all the pundits wrong.
Let’s use this crisis as an opportunity to make big and lasting change.
Let’s not think just in the short-term. Let’s think about the long-term, let’s think big and lay a new foundation for California’s future.
Let’s meet these challenges head-on without gimmicks.
I don’t want to hand these problems to the next governor and I know you don’t want to hand them to the next Legislature.
I have faith in all of you.
I have faith in our ability to once again come together for the good of our state.
Let’s move forward and put California back on the path to prosperity.
Thank you very much.
