Take a scalpel to $345 million in Californias stem-cell …

Just as good scientists are drawn to conclusions by solid data, the decision whether to spend another $345 million by Californias state-run stem-cell research project should be based on an objective analysis as to whether it would be cost-effective. A rigorous cost-benefit analysis is not only fiscally prudent, it avoids being drawn into the moral dilemmas posed by stem-cell research, especially with respect to cells from human embryos.

Created in 2004 with the passage of Proposition 71, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine was authorized to spend $3 billion in bond proceeds. But as is typical with most bonds, the interest payments would double the cost to $6 billion. CIRM has made $2.4 billion in grants and used $255 million for administration and prepaid interest leaving $345 million remaining to disburse.

Should CIRM distribute the remaining $345 million (which, with interest, would amount to $690 million in repayment costs)? Should this remaining pool of funds be doled out?

According to the ballot pamphlet mailed to voters, proponents promised the bond proceeds would advance the cure and treatment of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, spinal cord injuries, blindness, Lou Gehrigs disease, HIV/AIDS, mental health disorders, multiple sclerosis, Huntingtons disease, and more than 70 other diseases and injuries.

But actual outcomes for these promised advances are speculative at best and nonexistent at worst.

Similar benefits were promised to the California economy to generate millions of new tax dollars.

In a Prop. 71 ad, actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinsons, urged, Vote yes on 71, and save the life of someone you love. Initiative backers also promised royalties to the state could be as much as $1.1 billion, thus providing a source of funds to pay off the bonds.

This past August, almost 13 years after Prop. 71 passed, CIRM announced it would cough up its first royalty check to the state on the new technologies it developed. Can anyone say bust?

With such a dismal record, this would be a good time to shut the spigot on issuing the remaining $345 million meaning some $690 million would be saved by state taxpayers. That money could be better spent on pensions, schools, roads, housing or better basic medical care for our residents.

And required bond payments include $313 million from the 2017-18 budget, which began on July 1, and another $309 million from the 2018-19 budget. Total: $622 million for just two years. No wonder the Democratic supermajority raised the gas tax to find money for roads.

Unbelievably, a recently proposed $5 billion initiative for the 2018 ballot to extend the subsidy effectively a second opinion on the project was dumped last June. Even supporters didnt think they could resell their snake oil.

When it seemed the new initiative might be advanced, the California Stem Cell Report ran an op-ed by Joe Rodota and Bernard Munos. CIRM has over-invested in academic research, and under-invested in translating that research into therapies that cure diseases and prolong heathy lives, they noted. California needs to right that balance.

But with the new initiative now moribund, CIRM therefore continues to operate as a kind of advanced high-school science project, instead of moving toward the cures promised to voters in Prop. 71.

Thats why Sen. John Moorlach (coauthor of this piece) sponsored Senate Constitutional Amendment 7. Requiring a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature, it would have repealed Article XXXV of the California Constitution, which codified Prop. 71.

Gov. Jerry Brown, among others, has prudently warned of the coming inevitable recession. And recent federal data show jobs growth in the state rising at only a 1.2 percent annual rate. This should be a time for excising waste and terminating this disappointing abuse of taxpayer dollars.

Jon Coupal is the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, is a state senator representing the 37th District.

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Take a scalpel to $345 million in Californias stem-cell ...