From the SacBee:

As the Legislature considers many options to address California’s $17 billion budget shortfall, it’s clear that action must be taken to solve the state budget crisis not only for this year, but for future years. The time is now to enact true, meaningful budget reform that establishes a spending limit and creates a rainy-day reserve.

California’s severe budget challenges can be traced to one simple thing – an out-of-control state budget system that allows the Legislature to spend more than we take in each year. During prosperous times, the current system allows politicians to spend all of our revenue, without requiring any saving for the future. During difficult budget times, auto-pilot spending forces the Legislature to continue spending even if we don’t have enough money. This makes no sense.

Unless we take steps now to adopt long-term fixes to our broken budget system, our best efforts to balance the budget and eliminate the deficit this year will be meaningless. Now, more than ever, we must make budget reform a top priority during budget discussions this year. Simply put, the status quo cannot continue or we will push our state into bankruptcy.

That’s why, today, Senate and Assembly Republicans will unveil a spending limit proposal to end the budget madness once and for all.

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