The spending by the State of California is unsustainable.  How many more new taxes will we need to vote on before the budget is actually balanced?  How many more school and other infrastructure bonds will we need to pass in order to sustain the increasing salaries and benefits of government workers?  We must look at the expenditures that we're currently making and reel them in.  Social programs for the out of work and economically disadvantaged must be funded ONLY IF they help people to succeed.  There should be no funding to keep people in poverty.  Yet that is what our current supermajority legislature continues to do.  It's time to break the ugly cycle of poverty.  It's time to elect compassionate, fiscally conservatives like Chuck Page to our State Assembly.

With more than $380B in unfunded liabilities (state employee & teacher pensions & retiree benefits), California MUST do better.  I plan to bring my conservative fiscal management practices to Sacramento.  In Saratoga, I not only balanced a budget for 8 years, but I found ways to cut taxes in the process, too.  Three of the first areas of the budget that need to be addressed are: 

1. Unfunded pensions & retiree healthcare.  Whether or not you agree with the taxpayer funded pensions and retiree heath plans, the State of California must meet the terms of contracts held by retirees at the time of their retirement.  However, if current government employees and teachers are to receive any of their own contracted pensions, then the structure needs to be changed immediately.  Even with the Governor’s May revise of the budget, where he announced some funding of CalStrs over the next 30 years, it is unsustainable.  Taxpayers cannot bear the 90% burden of those pensions that Governor Brown proposes.  I will seek to build a pension system that is equitable to all, and where the employees are responsible for their retirement benefits, just like it is in the private sector.  I believe that the best plan for this and the fairest plan, will be a combination of defined benefit plan and a defined contribution plan.
2. There are a great many programs that are funded by taxpayers that have done absolutely nothing to help those in poverty to rise out of it.  I will work with experts to ensure that programs require job training and sunset periods with measureable objectives that are tracked and effectiveness is measured.  The most successful programs, as evaluated by the measurements, will be allowed to continue and be improved.
3. Our Education spending needs to be evaluated and made more effective.  With more than half of our state budget (your tax money and mine) going to education and our state ranked no higher than 47^th in the nation, we obviously have to change something.  We need to look at the overhead of school districts and ensure efficiencies and cost effectiveness at all levels.  We have school districts with only one school, yet there is still a superintendent in place for that district.  This is overhead that we cannot afford.  Likewise, we must look at the spending that is required by passage of previous bills and ensure that there are not forced spending requirements that cannot be met.  For example, there are healthcare bills that require that a certain amount of funding be set aside for marketing and other non-healthcare related activities.  We must reign in this wasteful spending and use it for more productive purposes.