California is suffering from initiatives. Will Washington face the same fate?

The cover, which shows a surfer carrying a surfboard with its tip drooping down, tracks the origins of California’s decline to Proposition 13, a citizen’s initiative in the early 1970s that limited both the tax rate on property taxes and the amount those taxes could rise each year. Rather than restricting government spending, the magazine argues, the measure forced the state to subsidize local government, effectively centralizing more decision making. It also started a chain of events that undermined the effectiveness of state and local governments.

In succeeding years, Californians made their situation worse by trying to fix problems through more initiatives, many of which cut taxes. One, like a similar initiative passed in Washington, requires a two-thirds majority to pass taxes. The measure, combined with poor leadership in the legislature, has made a mess of California government, The Economist argues.

Schools in California are now a disaster, with spending per student down to $7,900 in 2010, from more than $9,000 in 2001. Universities that were once the pride of the nation are slowly deteriorating as the state spends less than six percent of its general fund on universities compared to nearly 10 percent on prisons.

Is Washington headed in the same direction? We certainly have the unfortunate tendency to try to legislate through initiative rather than leadership in the legislature. We have passed legislation requiring a two-thirds majority to pass taxes, which has tied the hands of the legislature. We are cutting of funds to our universities that virtually everybody recognized is critical to our state’s economy.

And in Seattle we have a mayor who doesn’t lead at all, preferring instead to sabotage earlier decisions such as a tunnel to replace the Viaduct by promoting even more initiatives.

There are clearly reforms that need to take place. We need to get spending on things like workers comp under control and we need to pay off our pension obligations. But simply cutting taxes and spending is not the answer. It makes no sense not to support efforts to promote Washington tourism, which bring a huge return to the state, although this is one case in which it may be possible to create a coalition of private sector companies to finance such activities. We also need selective spending to encourage important sectors like biotech and manufacturing. We certainly need to support education so we can train our workers to prepare for an economy in transition. Our manufacturing sector, which is getting stronger thanks to a weak dollar, needs help training workers so they can fill new openings. We are cutting health care initiatives that will end up costing us more in the long term.

There is an argument to be made that government should be more efficient. But putting government’s head in a noose is not the answer.

We should not assume that the marketplace will heal itself. In a global market in which governments are helping promote their industries in virtually every other country, we need to be smart to stay in the game.

Washington needs to study the California disaster and make sure it doesn’t follow in its footsteps. California is hurting in spite of all the great companies that operate there, like Facebook and Google. We can’t assume that having Microsoft and Amazon in our backyard will save us.