Dear Legislators, |
We couldn’t agree more with Legislative Analyst Gabe Petek that it’s best to solve the deficit without using reserves, which are already woefully short of the amounts needed to protect essential services in the event of a recession. As Mr. Petek explained in his analysis, General Fund spending remains too high relative to revenue performance typical of historic norms. Accordingly, we urge you to solve the budget problem by curtailing previous temporary spending allocations and requiring all state agencies, schools, colleges, universities and other recipients of state funds to fully utilize federal healthcare subsidies from Medicare and Obamacare in order to reduce state spending on retiree healthcare. Not accessing federal funds is nonsensical and that step alone could save billions of dollars per year. |
