TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

In the latest state budget debate, taxpayers are presented with this "choice": increase taxes or experience drastic cuts to education, public projects and safety.

This choice is false, cunning and, if you still have a sense of humor, laughable. California does not have a revenue problem. California has a spending problem. Legislators have used the general fund to binge on pet projects and public employee benefits, only to cry that there is not enough left for necessary services like education, veterans and public safety. These priorities are distorted.

Here are the recent issues I have focused on that play directly into this problem:

* Education

The California Teachers Association recently took to the Capitol, shouting and chanting demands for more money. The week prior, we Republicans in the Assembly called for full funding to education without raising taxes, with the recent $2.5 billion of unanticipated revenue to also go toward schools. Yet marching orders still demanded additional taxes, proving my theory that it's all about growing government, not furthering education.

Real education reform efforts, such as flexibility to hire, fire and reward good teachers, are dismissed as attacks on teachers in general.

A false choice is presented: vote for higher taxes, with no education reform, or experience massive cuts to schools.

* Public projects

Workers on public projects, such as schools and courthouses or repairing roads are paid "prevailing wages" -- fixed, arbitrary hourly wages, far above fair compensation. Private bidders should instead compete for projects based on free market compensation, stretching our tax dollars much further.

Again, a false choice: raise taxes without prevailing wage reform or see fewer new schools and drive over more pothole-plagued roads.

My legislation, AB 987 and 988, addresses this misuse of taxpayer dollars.

* Public safety

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that California's prisons are overcrowded, resulting in cruel and unusual punishment, thus violating prisoners' Eighth Amendment rights. I suspect Gov. Jerry Brown will use this opportunity to expand his case for additional taxes. What you won't hear is that, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, taxpayers spend about $45,000 annually per inmate, nearly double the national average. Most of the rising cost of keeping prisoners is staff salaries and pensions, as well as health care for inmates.

The Delano Community Correctional Facility houses inmates for less than half the cost of other state prisons. Yet this facility, along with five other CCFs, is at risk of being shut down in the latest budget proposal. We should expand these efficient prisons, not close them.

Californians are again being given a false choice: raise taxes without scaling back prison costs or release more than 40,000 prisoners onto our streets.

Bloated state government is an insult to taxpayers. This legislature's loyalties are to union employee priorities while they cut services for our most vulnerable -- children, elderly and veterans. The governor and Legislature must be called to task for their clever and deceitful practice of giving the citizens false choices.

The media should ask tougher questions when told there is no way to cut spending. I call upon all Californians to resist the false choices and threats by public unions and demand efficient use of their tax dollars.

Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, represents the 32nd Assembly District, which includes Bakersfield, Tehachapi, Taft, Kern River Valley, Frazier Park and the Indian Wells Valley. She is one of four local lawmakers writing about their work in The Californian. These are Grove's opinions, not necessarily The Californian's. Next Sunday: Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield.