Californians say "stop taxing and stop spending"

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A new Field Poll released today shows that half of registered voters in California think the budget problems should be fixed primarily, if not exclusively, by cutting spending, not raising taxes. In order to fix the nearly $20 billion budget gap 31% preferred only making spending cuts, 19% wanted "mostly spending cuts", and 19% favored a mix of cuts and tax increases. Only 4% of those polled said that increasing taxes alone, was the best solution.

The Field Poll also asked Californians how they felt about changing the state constitution. The first question asked if the current two-thirds, or supermajority, approval necessary to pass the state budget should be replaced by a simple majority. By a margin of 47% to 43%, those polled felt that if lawmakers cleaned up their act and worked together, the state wouldn’t actually need fundamental change to the constitution.

When asked about amending the constitution, however, 51% supported replacing the supermajority requirement with a simple majority for voters to approve constitutional amendments. 

One thing seems clear from all of this, voters are not happy about how state government has performed and they have some strong ideas about how things should change. If you pulled out one person from this poll, odds are they would sound like this:

"Let's get out of this financial mess by slashing spending, not raising my taxes! Is the supermajority requirement for budget approval part of the reason we're in debt? Well, maybe, but if the legislature would stop their bickering and do their job, we probably wouldn't be here in the first place! And one more thing... as voters, we don't really need that supermajority to pass amendments, 51% will do just fine."

The Field Poll was conducted with the think tank Next 10, and sponsored in part by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University, and CSU Sacramento. They have have started a nonpartisan website - www.californiachoices.org - to inform Californians about the budget problems and what solutions are available. The survey can be viewed online at the Field Poll website.