79-03-A2

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Proposition 13 and the Post Commission II

Transcript Last year when the voters of California passed Proposition 13 by a two-to-one margin, what they had in mind was less government. But when Governor Jerry Brown appointed the Commission on Government Reform to tell him how to make Proposition 13 work, what he had in mind was being re elected. The difference in motivation produced dramatically different results. The voters enacted a tax decrease; eight months later the Governor's commission recommended a tax increase. How could a commission created to help implement a tax decrease end up recommending a tax increase? The answer is found in the arrogance and power of government bureaucracy. Not that most of the commission members were bureaucrats. They weren't. Most of them were busy, productive people offering their limited time free of charge to make government work better. Behind the scenes the bureaucrats were preparing elaborate reports about the need for more spending, concocting horror stories a bout the deprivation tax cuts would bring. Doing, in other words, what bureaucrats always do justifying their existence. Thousands of hours of the highly-paid time of these bureaucrats, and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars, went into these dismal reports to the Commission. In two short months, the bureaucrats produced enough reports to fill a six-foot shelf. Buried in the blizzard of paper, weighed down with the burden of other responsibilities, the commission lost touch with the people. There were, to be sure, dissenters. One could hope aloud that the commission wouldn't make itself look foolish. But it did, by recommending tax increases, spending increases and more centralization of government -- the exact opposite of what the people had voted for. In his haste to create a crutch for his reelection campaign, Jerry Brown had given the bureaucrats another platform for their big government ideas, and the commission had gone along with them. That, of course, is how high level commissions often operate. The background work, upon which commissions' decisions are based, is done behind the scenes by bureaucrats promoting their own interests and organizations. For them, bigger government is always better government and the people are always wrong. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 79-03-A2 Production Date 02/13/1979 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
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