California: Split Personality Voters

As Jerry Brown prepares to roll out his second act as governor (Moonbeam: The Sequel?) the toughest problem he faces is neither the state's financial woes nor the Capitol's political dysfunction: It's California's dual-personality disorder.

• By a huge plurality — 44-to-6 percent — voters said they would rather cut spending than raise taxes to address the state's $25-billion deficit (another 44 percent opted for an unspecified combination of cuts and taxes).

• By an even larger margin, however, voters said they either oppose any cuts or favor more spending on education and public health programs — the two largest items in the budget. The only area where there is broad agreement for reducing expense is on prisons, which represent just 7 percent of the budget.

• By 70-to-24 percent, voters said that there is enough waste and inefficiency in government spending that we can reduce most of the state deficit by cleaning up programs without cutting programs like health care and education — an implausible scenario that belies the fact that health care and education alone account for nearly two-thirds of total state spending.

For more, see Split Personality by Jerry Roberts, December 9, 2010 at The Santa Barbara Independent.