Dear Legislators,
This week the Biden Administration announced that personal income rose 0.4% in April, consumers increased spending sharply, U.S. economic activity is at its highest pace in more than a year, and the unemployment rate is at an envious 3.4 percent. All of that is good news — and good reason for the Legislature not to solve the budget problem by dipping into the state’s reserves, which will be sorely needed in the event of a recession. The first steps towards addressing the budget deficit should be to reduce the state’s embarrassing spending on prison employee compensation and to cut appropriations to recipients of state funds who are not making full use of federal funds available to retired public employees under Obamacare. By not doing so, CSU and UC alone are wasting $800 million a year, LAUSD alone is wasting $200 million a year, San Francisco alone is wasting $400 million a year, and the state alone is wasting $3 billion a year, and the same is true of countless other agencies. Retired public employees in other states are getting excellent health insurance at a small fraction of the cost California incurs and California’s elected officials fought hard to enact and sustain Obamacare. The least they could do is use it.
Govern For California
