PROP 68
PROPOSITION 68: PARKS, ENVIRONMENT, AND WATER BOND
June 2018 Ballot
YES = state borrows $4B for water and park infrastructure (think state and local parks, and flood protection), and 15-20% of the funds MUST be spent on projects in communities with households well below the average state income.
I don’t think the argument here is really about water and park infrastructure, unless you want California to be more like Georgia, where there exists almost no public lands, and almost everything is polluted, and only the wealthy are entitled to city parks, flood protection, clean water, and reliable infrastructure.
The argument is about how to pay for it.
Anza-Borrego State Park super-bloom, March 2017. Photos by J. STANFORD.
In this case, we’re paying at least $1.37 for each $1 we borrow ($6.53B will be paid to investors over 30 years in exchange for $4B now).
Bonds over $300K must be approved by a legislative supermajority, signed by the governor, AND approved by the voters. If the Republicans make any gains in legislative races in the coming cycles, bonds like these will become rare.
Why borrow? Because the legislature cannot simply add this to the budget. The culprit is Prop 98, passed in 1988. According to the Intercept, “Prop 98 was itself a reaction to the notorious Prop 13, which sharply limited state property taxes. It was intended to ensure that education received its fair share of funding. But it also created a budgetary straitjacket that affects virtually anything that costs California money.” In other words, if you add something to the budget, you must likewise devote more money to education. This is why the latest single payer law failed—and it had nothing to do with single payer. It was all about Prop 98.
In case you’re wondering, the state currently has over $70B in debt from these types of bonds.
Supporting Prop 68 is the smartest man in the room, Governor Brown; Lt. Gov. Newsom, former L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and the entire California Democratic Party, as well as the San Francisco Chronicle and 3 other papers, as well as a number of organizations including the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Supporters have raised $2.1M (as of early April), and of them the Nature Conservancy contributed most. I trust the Nature Conservancy implicitly.
Opposing Prop 68 is the usual anti-tax crowd. They have not raised any money in opposition. Some of their official arguments are worth paying attention to—they concede that parks, water, and infrastructure are important, but they argue
- that the agencies charged with spending the funds are not trustworthy (perhaps; I’d like to see more evidence, but this argument ignores the fact that the expenditures must be audited annually)
- that only the rich neighborhoods will benefit (a complete lie)
- that California should not borrow any more money (disingenuous; these are the same people who support the drunken casino spending of Republicans at the federal level… that said, it is not unsound to argue that something else should be cut in order to pay for this, but since elections have consequences, that’s not going to happen for a longgggg time in California).
Whitewater Preserve. The waters of the Whitewater River from Mt. San Gorgonia feed the aquifer of the Coachella Valley. Photo by J. STANFORD, March 2017.
Fiscal Conservatives™ tend to file infrastructure where they file everything else except billion dollar bombers and cool space lasers and tax cuts: in the Unnecessary Spending file.
Facts:
It costs MORE to fix disasters caused by failing infrastructure—not less. Just ask New Orleans.
It costs MORE to pay for health care as a result of poisoned drinking water—not less. Just ask Flint, Michigan.
I don’t see another way to get the money, and I don’t think it will be easier to accomplish in the future.
YES ON PROP 68
#Prop68
