During a recent meeting with allied organizations concerned about California’s high taxes, the question on everyone’s mind was: why do our political adversaries continue to push for even more taxes given that the state has a huge budget surplus? Also, how much excess revenue is there?

But like most questions involving public policy – and particularly those related to fiscal issues – the question quickly begot more questions. For example, what’s the difference between a surplus and a reserve? Also, should we look at just the general fund or should we expand the inquiry to special funds as well?

If one includes reserves from special funds and adds them to the generally accepted figure of the surplus, the answer is stunning. General fund reserves exceed $20 billion and special fund reserves exceed $16 billion. In short, California is sitting on over $36 billion. This doesn’t even include the billions kept in reserve by local governments.

So with all this good news, why do the state and local governments continue to press for ever higher taxes? The answer — which they prefer to conceal from the taxpaying public — is that they know that the bill will soon be due for all the accumulated government debt.

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