He doesn't like spending

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assocation, has a column on the FlashReport today decrying the governor's bond proposal. The HJTA is, more or less, the center of anti-tax thought in the state. Coupal does have one moment of selective memory: Think for a moment of the huge multibillion dollar surpluses Gray Davis enjoyed in his fist three years in office. If, instead [of] using the extra $28 billion to expand programs that mandate a permanent spending increase, the money had been put into one-time expenditures like building schools, the taxpayers would have been spared the expanse of repaying $25 billion – nearly $50 billion with interest -- in state school bonds over the next 30 years. Coupal doesnt' mention that Davis' "permanent" changes in the state budget also included tax cuts, most notably the steep cuts vehicle license fee, that continues to this day. Still, it is worthy of a read to see the conservative base rebelling from Schwarzenegger floating, as Coupal calls it, a "massive “infrastructure” bond trial balloon "