Don Perata apparently has decided that cancer research is sexier than the state budget when it comes to his election plans.
Perata, who wants to be Oakland’s next mayor, was at that city’s Children’s Hospital Monday, touting the launch of an initiative drive to boost the tobacco tax to raise money for cancer research.
Two days later, the Legislative Analyst’s Office put out a report showing that California is looking at a $20.7 billion budget hole next year and deficits bigger than that in each of the two years following.
Perata, a Democrat who was the state Senate leader until last year, knows exactly the type of devastating cuts that will be needed to close that budget gap and the type of damage those reductions will do to both the state and the people who depend on its services.
In his heart of hearts, Perata likely realizes that if Californians are going to raise tobacco taxes by $1 a pack and tap smokers for an additional $500 million a year, they’d do a lot more good by directing that money into programs drained by continuing budget cuts than by tossing the cash into the maw of big bucks medical research.
But Perata is also politician enough to know he’s likely to get a lot more mileage for his mayoral bid by taking on the tobacco industry on behalf of cancer patients than he ever will by talking up the financial woes of state government.
He might be underestimating California voters.
In a reasonable world, any tax measures on next year’s ballot would be aimed directly at closing the state’s yawning budget gap, rather than siphoning Californians’ cash into private causes, regardless of how worthy. Sure, cancer research is important, but so is money for schools and the frail elderly, health insurance for kids and all the other services the state has to provide every year.
Last May, voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have raised billions for budget relief. But Prop. 1A was a kitchen sink type of measure, lumping the tax hikes with a spending cap, a rainy day fund, guarantees for school spending, more power for the governor, priorities for future spending and a partridge in a pear tree.
The whole mess was wrapped in a thick coating of bureaucratic gobbledygook, which undoubtedly caused many voters to throw up their hands in despair and take the only reasonable course when faced with ballot box confusion: a “no” vote.
A tax increase is never an easy sell and the current wretched economic climate ratchets up that difficulty.
Still, if the Legislature could guarantee any tax increases would be applied directly to the deficit – and instantly disappear when the economy turns around – it might be worth putting a clean tax measure on the ballot for a straight up or down vote.
At the very least, the pro and con arguments on that straightforward tax hike measure would focus public attention on California’s financial problems, provoking a discussion that’s desperately needed.
But, with apologies to Perata’s political ambitions, this is no time for any taxes that don’t directly help the state. If tobacco companies, big oil, the alcohol industry and any of the other popular tax targets are going to be squeezed for more money, it’s California that should get the cash.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.