Community Commentary:

California is in crisis. Over the past several years, Sacramento has spent itself into perpetual budget deficits that have driven jobs and opportunity out of our state. As a result, we have more than 2.26 million Californians out of work, one of the highest tax rates in the nation and bloated state government we can’t afford.

Yet, there are some who believe that raising taxes (yet again) on job creators and Californians who are still fortunate to have a job will solve all our problems. They believe that if bureaucrats had a little bit more of your money, our economy would rebound quickly. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Instead, raising taxes will only give bureaucrats more money to waste if history is any guide.

While liberal pundits and lawmakers believe that government waste is either nonexistent or mostly fiction, the facts say otherwise. Recently, the California Taxpayers’ Assn. (Cal-Tax) released a revealing report titled “A Decade of Waste, Fraud and Mismanagement” that showed state government wasted at least $18.9 billion of our tax dollars over the past 10 years.

These dollars — which probably only represent a fraction of overall waste in government — could have been used to reduce the budget deficit or prevent costly tax increases if they had been spent responsibly.

Among the numerous examples of waste Cal-Tax uncovered are the California Department of Transportation’s wasting $3.2 billion in cost overruns for retrofitting the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The California state auditor found that about a third of the cost overruns came from politicians’ demands for a fancier suspension span, which needlessly wasted precious taxpayer dollars and delayed an important safety project.

Welfare fraud also drains our tax dollars, with 19.1% of all quantifiable state waste, fraud or mismanagement in the past 10 years involving social services programs. While the state has taken steps in recent years to crack down on fraud, at least $3.6 billion still disappeared, with many dollars going to those who gamed the system for profit.

The state even finds a way to waste money when it tries to save it. At a time when student fees are rising, UC Berkeley is spending more than $3 million of your tax dollars to have a Boston-based private consulting firm tell the university how to reduce its spending! Given the tough budget choices that public universities like Berkeley have to make, surely it could have saved the $3 million it is spending on consultants and instead let its campus community suggest responsible spending reductions for free.

Sadly, these examples of waste are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more examples abound of government agencies misusing our tax dollars in every area of the budget, whether it’s in transportation, welfare or education.

Eliminating government inefficiencies is just the beginning. We need to prioritize spending to ensure that critical areas are adequately funded and reduce the boom-and-bust budget cycles that have hurt us over the years. But if the state had not wasted $18.9 billion in the past decade, our budget deficit would be more manageable today.

If the Legislature is serious about targeting our budget problems, it should go after waste, not taxpayers with more tax increases. As lawmakers debate and craft a budget agreement in the coming months, I will fight hard to pass measures that will stop wasteful spending. Taxpayers deserve nothing less.

JIM SILVA is an assemblyman covering the 67th District, which includes Huntington Beach.