California Insider

A Weblog by
Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

Back to California Insider home page

« No longer a spectator sport | | Take a deep breath, folks »

July 27, 2003

Bureaucrats beware

I just heard that the budget deal will include the creation of a commission to examine the state bureuacracy and eliminate unnecessary agencies and offices. This is an idea that Sen. (and candidate for gov) Tom McClintock has been pushing for some time. Things are now so bad fiscally that the libs are picking up on his idea because they see it as a way to preserve services they value -- by killing off stuff that's obsolete or unnecessary. McClintock touts this as similar to the military base reduction process that the feds went through a few years back. He wants a list of agencies that should be eliminated and an up or down vote in the Legislature, to avoid nickel and diming the thing to death with amendments. Probably a good idea. How much will this process save the taxpayers? Not much, unfortunately, in the great scheme of things. Maybe a few hundred million dollars. But that is a start, and more importantly, it's a step toward adopting the psychology that we don't have to keep doing everything we are doing now forever. We can re-examine priorities and stop doing some things.