Virtually every state across the nation faces budget problems,
but California’s deficit is by far the largest.
When asked to comment on the state’s budget shortfall,
California Assembly Speaker Herb J. Wesson Jr. said this past
December “there is a hole so deep and so vast that even if we
fired every single person on the state payroll ““ every park
ranger, every college professor and every Highway Patrol officer,
we would still be more than $6 billion short.”
Despite the gravity of this situation, many students and
Californians remain unaware of the devastating implications this
fiscal crisis may precipitate. The few people who are informed
about the state’s fiscal problems often do not understand the
scope and the magnitude of the situation.
California currently faces a $34.6 billion shortfall in the
fiscal year starting in July 2003. Gov. Gray Davis proposed $356.7
million in general fund reductions for higher education for the
next fiscal year. Consequently, student fees will increase by 25
percent in addition to the 10 percent hike that became effective in
spring 2003. Many students who were shocked by their bills this
spring have the misconception that the fees had already gone up,
without knowing that student fees will increase even more and by a
greater percentage when fall comes.
Student groups are forming coalitions to protest the fee hikes
by lobbying the appropriate authority and attending the UC Board of
Regents’ meeting in San Francisco. However, few people seem
to pay attention to the political reality in Sacramento. Certainly
the regents may have a record of disregard for students’
voices and needs, but the stalemate in the state legislature and
the state’s lack of reliable revenue sources have a
significantly greater bearing on the current crisis.
In accordance with the state constitution, the California
legislature can only pass a budget with 2/3 of the votes. Democrats
are proposing to close the gap with a combination of program cuts
and tax hikes. However, the Republicans are adamantly against any
tax increases and plan to remedy the fiscal crisis with program
cuts alone. With Republicans holding just over 1/3 of the seats in
the state legislature and with no hopes of their becoming a
majority, there is little motivation for them to negotiate.
Few realize that the 25 percent student fee hikes are based on
the governor’s proposals. Given the political climate at the
state capitol, there is little chance that the legislators will
approve the governor’s agenda without additional cuts. Nobody
knows what the final budget may look like. But given Republican
legislators’ staunch resistance to raise revenue, a 25
percent fee increase is nothing compared to the increases students
will face when the budget is finalized and signed into law. It is
entirely possible that fees for a UC undergraduate may increase by
several thousands of dollars.
While the politics in the capitol present a pressing and real
problem, fundamental flaws in California’s taxation system
also contributed greatly to the state’s fiscal crisis. The
passage of Proposition 13 more than two decades ago shifted
California’s revenue sources from property tax to the highly
volatile personal income tax, making the state’s income
susceptible to the boom and bust cycle of the economy.
Fiscal crisis in the early 1990s and the current shortfall are
all direct implications of economic downturns. According to
Elizabeth Hill, the non-partisan state legislative analyst, real
per capita spending has only increased by 17 percent over the past
few years, while revenues generated by personal income, which
accounts for approximately a half of the state’s revenue, saw
a drastic decline. Clearly, California’s fiscal crisis is
largely due to the lack of reliable revenue sources rather than
overspending.
The state budget crisis, however, does not merely boil down to
politics and student fee hikes. After all, California has
consistently spent a little over half of its revenue on education.
Education accounts for 57.6 percent of Governor Davis’ budget
bill for next year.
California’s other expenditures, such as health, human
services and general government operations, will face draconian
budget reductions in comparison to that of higher education.
Teachers are already being told not to come back next year,
government employees are getting laid off, and patients have died
in under-funded emergency rooms, where they waited for services
that they never received.
Student fee hikes, while of paramount importance to many at
UCLA, are only a part of a crisis that has already caused many
hardships across California and will most definitely have enormous
impacts on every Californian when the next fiscal year comes
around.
Student groups’ activism and efforts to prevent fee hikes
are laudable. However, activists should not view the state’s
financial crisis solely as students, but as Californians as
well.
Students need to work with teachers, healthcare workers, labor
organizations and community organizations to advocate for a
balanced remedy to the state budget crisis and to put pressure on
the Republicans in the state legislature to consider reasonable tax
hikes. Students, healthcare workers, public safety officers and
teachers are in this situation together.
We can only prevent the detrimental reductions if we organize
and voice our concerns in a concerted fashion.
Tseng is a first-year undeclared student.