The guiding philosophy at all levels of politics is “never face today what you can put off to tomorrow.” This is even true for matters that require immediate attention. Most politicians are, by nature, risk adverse, worried more about reelection (or the next higher office) than they are in solutions to real problems.

But “kicking the can down the road” comes with risks. Moreover, neither political party possesses a monopoly on failing to act in a timely manner to serious problems before they become full-blown crises.

Here in California, despite repeated warnings from the Legislature’s own Analyst, very little has been done to balance the books in a way that doesn’t resemble the accounting practices of an organized crime syndicate.

The state budget in the year prior to Newsom’s governorship was $201 billion. With the current budget at $321 billion, this reflects an increase of 60% even with a declining population over that timeframe.

Increased spending that far outstrips both inflation and population is the result of bad governance, especially when much of that spending is wasteful. For example, California should have pulled the plug on the disastrous high-speed rail project decades ago, but union influence continues to force state taxpayers to dump billions into that embarrassing boondoggle. Likewise, extending full-scope Medi-Cal benefits to all undocumented immigrant adults was originally budgeted at “only” $6 billion but had cost state taxpayers $9.5 billion and counting by the middle of March.

Another prime example of Newsom kicking the can down the road is his plan to suspend payments to the fund created to pay for negotiated lifetime healthcare benefits for public employees. This will stress future budgets (and taxpayers) as the poor tradeoff for the self-inflicted wounds today.

Despite our political leaders’ failure to address these systemic problems, who does Gov. Newsom blame? Who else? President Trump, of course: “Largely due to the federal government’s sweeping tariff policy, the 2025 May Revision forecast of the California economy projects a period of below-trend growth and rising unemployment (‘growth recession’) and a General Fund revenue forecast downgrade by $5.2 billion in fiscal years 2023-24 through 2025-26,” according to Newsom.

But California’s fiscal mismanagement has a much longer history than Trump’s recent actions on tariffs. Moreover, this complaint begs the question of why aren’t other states similarly impacted? Perhaps it is because they have a more responsible governing class.

In case anyone believes we reserve our criticism only for progressive governance in Democrat-run states, we also cringe at what is happening in the nation’s capital with the Big Beautiful Bill. It most assuredly is not the model of fiscal responsibility.

As this column is being written, the federal government is adding more than $1 million to the national debt every 20 seconds. Projected outlays for federal debt service keep growing with interest payments on the national debt exceeding spending on defense. Even worse, Social Security is on track to run out of money by 2034. This is inexcusable because modest changes to the program now could reap huge benefits down the road.

Despite the growing national debt, neither Congress nor the White House seem poised to tackle excessive spending. At least the Republicans have a colorable argument that making the tax cuts permanent will spur growth, but that alone won’t be enough to solve our debt problem. We can hope, however, that future “rescission” bills and the “reconciliation” process will result in meaningful spending reductions.

At both the state and federal levels, the problem with kicking the can down the road is that the problems only become worse with the passage of time. Only a pending and immediate catastrophe will spur politicians to action. But at that point, solutions become chaotic and poorly thought out.

Maybe our legislative leaders will do what they always do in the face of an impending crisis; create a commission or authorize a study. That’s because, from their vantage point, the best way to deal with a crisis is to not deal with it at all.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.