August 10, 2015
That is the implication of comments by John Myers, a reporter with KQED radio in San Francisco. Myers was interviewed on the occasion of California paying off the last of $15 billion of bonds issued in 2004 to cover a large deficit. When Myers was asked how the bond issue worked out for the state, he responded:
“Well, certainly, the state got through the worst times. But again, in that million dollars a day, every day, for 11 years, that’s a lot of interest. I don’t think that the voters really understood that. Schwarzenegger did not sell that part of the plan when he was out campaigning for the deficit bond that it was going to cost all of this in interest. I think there are definitely lessons learned.
“The politics of California were so polarized back then. And of course, we have seen that now on a national level. There are, you know, some lessons about what happens that the political system can’t resolve at some point. And I think, too, there’s probably a lesson for voters that borrowing money in state bonds is not free money and that it does come at a cost. All of those interest payments could have gone for something else in California.
“That money – just as an example – could have paid for the state’s share of the University of California system for like 15 or 16 months. I mean, it is a lot of money. And these were choices that the voters were making. I think that might be the real lesson learned.”
The state could have only saved the interest to pay for its share of the University of California system for 15 or 16 months if it had found some combination of tax increases and spending cuts to fill a $15 billion gap in 2004. Since the state had already done both, and was still feeling the effects of the collapse of the tech bubble on its economy at the time, it does not follow that a further set of tax increases and spending cuts would have been wise policy at the time.
Of course the state could have made very large cuts to its contributions to the University of California and K-12 education in 2004, then it would not have been forced to pay so much interest in later years, but it’s hard to see why that would have been a better route for the state to take. In addition to the direct effect of these cuts, given the weakness of the economy at the time, it is likely there would have been an additional effect due to loss of purchasing power and therefore further job loss.
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