California leaders make deal to sink state into ocean
Among other places, I write at Calitics, the progressive site covering California politics. This is often a punishing experience. Since 1978, Proposition 13 has tilted the very structure of government in an unassailably conservative direction - 2/3 votes are needed to raise taxes, but only a simple majority to cut. As a result, politicians invariably take the path of least resistance, and as the Norquistian right rose to prominence in the state GOP, they learned that they could simply hijack the budget process for their own ends. State leaders compensated with borrowing and various gimmicks to put off the costs until after they left office. Servicing the debt became a bigger and bigger slice of the budget pie. Stakeholders who couldn't rely on the state used the ridiculously easy initiative process to pass unfunded spending mandates for themselves and all sorts of ballot-box budgeting. In good times, this uneasy balance worked... sort of. In even the most mild recessions, it would collapse.
That sets the stage for yesterday's horrendous budget deal, which closes a $26 billion dollar deficit with almost no new revenue, making steep cuts that amount to a reinvention of government's promises to its people, along with the usual gimmickry and a harsh, counter-productive set of raids on local government resources.
A local government official made a comment Monday afternoon, a few hours before the $25 billion deficit deal was reached, that seems to encapsulate everyone's feelings.
"As this budget hits the street today and people look at it," said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, "I think Californians are going to say, 'How did we get in this mess?'"
It relies on about $15.5 billion in cuts and $11 billion in, well, other stuff (more on that in a moment).
Almost two-thirds of the cuts are in K-12 education, colleges, and universities (though it also includes a one-time supplemental payment to K-12 and community colleges of $11.2 billion). Other sizeable cuts are in corrections ($1.2 billion), state worker salaries ($1.3 billion in the current furloughs) and Medi-Cal services ($1.3 billion). Welfare assistance, health care for low-income kids, and in-home support services (IHSS) would also see cuts.
Also cut: funding for state parks, though nowhere near the level Governor Schwarzenegger proposed in May. Legislative staffers say a few parks would close, and the ones in question will be picked by the
administration.
In addition, the state will steal borrow $4.3 billion from already strapped local governments, leading to probable bankruptcies and in all likelihood more expenses for the state to pick up. California workers will see an extra 10% of their state withholding taxes taken as an interest-free loan. The state will delay paychecks to state workers by one day, from June 30 to July 1, to push $1.3 billion into the next fiscal year. Governor Robot added non-budget related items like anti-fraud prevention measures to IHSS, so that when you try to access social services, you get fingerprinted like a common criminal. And one of the only revenue producers? A $100 million annual lease for offshore drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara, the first new drilling on the California coast since a massive oil spill in that area 40 years ago.
A lot of this stuff is illegal; almost all of it is immoral. And yet the system is designed to produce bad outcomes. The 2/3 requirement enforces the structural revenue gap, led by the comically low property taxes, in particular for commercial properties (many paying the same rate since 1978). State Democrats have shown no leadership to change the system for 31 years, leading to policies that kick the can down the road, at a higher eventual cost. And Republicans get their wish of drowning government in the bathtub. California is dead last in state spending in almost every meaningful category, and this profoundly damages the state's future.
I have become convinced that the only way out of this is through a Constitutional convention, the enactment of which has been suggested by some who are trying to build a movement for it. This is not a problem of personality but process. We could elect Gavin Newsom, Meg Whitman, Noam Chomsky or John Birch governor, and the structural problems will still be with us. The structural problems are so vast, so widespread, that only dealing with them completely, and returning the state to responsible governance, has any hope of succeeding. It's going to take a long slog, but ultimately, we have to Repair California or else we will continue this long march to nowhere.
California's problem, by the way, is by no means unique. In the US Senate we have a smaller undemocratic threshold, but only slightly so. The minority Republicans are fanatical here, but not so much more than the rump conservatives in Congress. We have almost no state political media, what does exist pushes meaningless bipartisanship masquerading as a solution, and the electorate pays little attention to politics anyway, unless a sideshow like the recall election takes place; not all that different at the national level. California has throughout its history been seen as a bellweather for national economic and social change. As Paul Krugman said in an op-ed several months back, "This could be America next."
Neo Feudalism 101.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I just sent in my well wishes to CA assembly member Martin Garrick (R) - probably just wishful thinking that I'll get a reply.
---
As I sit here, a small business person doing business in the worst state in the Union, I wonder what my representative is doing... at the end of the day you're stealing from me and my family. You send out press releases, paid with my tax dollars, and you don't even see the irony. We're swimming in debt - much of it you've helped to create with fancy budgeting and gimmickry. But you only ask hard working Californian's to pay for it, by losses in education, healthcare and other services. You don't ask the huge money making machines... you know, your corporate backers, to pitch in when times are tough. Nope. Only us lowly nobody's. Guess it shouldn't surprise me that you don't even list my city, San Marcos, in the list of cities you are proud to serve. Guess you're none too proud of us rednecks in the east part of the district. I hope you can sleep at night knowing what you've done. Oh, and did you take any cuts in your taxpayer-funded compensation? No, I didn't think so. Socialism is no good, unless if it's for you.
But I paraphrased your "well wishes" to Mr. Garrick in an email to my own so called representative. She's a freshman assembly person but we go way back to when she first started as a county supervisor here. She's not known for answering emails.
That may also be a part of the problem. A tiny part but a part none the less. Term limits. Everybody pretty much are green behind the ears in the state Government. Who knows? Maybe it doesn't matter.
The poor and disabled, who are least able to afford it, have already started to pay for it because of benefit and health care cuts. Now the people at the bottom are going to pay even mor because of the drastic cuts in social services. By the time all is said and done those cuts will cost me over $100 per month and that's money I cannot afford.
Got Books? www.membranachristianbooks.com
Need Cables? www.yourcablestore.com
Congratulations to the tax frauds and other snake oil salesmen that sold Californians this garbage---now you have nothing.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
just use the Stimulus money to balance their budget like other states are doing?
latimes.com has a really good budget toy to figure your own budget.
It shows how much different programs cost in CA and the income/etc.
You can play with the "toy" calculator and figure it out.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-statebud...
Kind of twisted that it's necessary, but cool nonetheless.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-statebud...
At least WA has a balanced budget and a sane governor.
Who is qualified.
We also had unemployment double in one year and saw the loss of 10% of the State workforce. University tuition in my area is expected to increase almost 20% this year and a similar percentage next year.
the southern state of your choice here.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
OK! What do you get when you cross a Univ. of Texas cheerleader with a pig?
Nothing; there are some things even a PIG wouldn't do!!
sacrifice all our people to the idol of No Taxes. Sad.
I've never seen change without a fire
...just want to throw out the trial balloon that if we maybe, you know, started taxing our number one cash crop instead of incarcerating people for growing it that we could, you know, get a little win-win action out of that.
Just a thought.
...quite heavily in California I hear.
(some is grown legal already) but yeah legalize all of it!
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
You can tear my moral outrage from cold, dead,...broke... hands...uh....
Say, hippie, run that cash crop thingie by me one more time?
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
the last thing I want it to see my fun past time used by the squares as a way to save their broke asses.....
I say tax those house wives hopped on the really good stuff you can get from the upstanding and respectable pharmaceutical companies.
... and bust the growers.
CNN (YouTube): Oakland Considers Nation's "First" Marijuana Tax
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
... see State Marijuana Tax Stamps.
Bank On It: How Cash-Starved States Can Create Their Own Credit
EVERY State should have its own bank.
Why pay interest to the commercial banks, when the State itself can make low interest loans - benefitting its own population - AND collecting interest?
It's a no brainer.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
why doesnt the U.S. of A. get rid of it's current bank (The Fed) and start printing it's own money again?
(good idea MountainMan23 but lets go big time with it) and take it a step further!
why not print our own interest free money like we used to.
Hey MountainMan23, you sound a little bit like a teabagger! (no offense intended!)
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
States cannot file for bankruptcy. Chapter 9 only applies to municipalities.
"As this budget hits the street today and people look at it," said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, "I think Californians are going to say, 'How did we get in this mess?'"
Will the corporate media have the courage to tell the truth that it was by design of the anti-tax, anti-government proponents of Prop. 13 Jarvis and Ganns, that raised the margin to pass a tax increase to a point of stalemate, thereby successfully creating deficits, gridlock and chaos?
Arnold Schwarzenegger was sent from the future to destroy America.
-G
Except for his leadership inadequacies this is by a long shot not all Schwarzenegger's fault. I hate the fucker but this would have happened with anybody in office. I am happy he is getting the blame instead of a Democrat.
"....schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich."
~Daffy Duck
I'm just superstitious enough to hedge my bets.
I've lived in Los Angeles County my entire life. I'm thinking that I will be moving somewhere else soon, and definitely not in CA any longer.
Until the CA constitution is rewritten, we are sunk. Well, legalizing weed would help (I think it should be legal anyway) but probably not enough.
Lot's of states, especially those with the initiative process, have some similarly daffy anti-tax laws. Colorado is trapped by the TABOR amendment which ratchets down the size of state government everytime there's a downturn. Alaska has a similar 2/3 majority rule. No doubt there are others. Oregon had its own tax-revolt that lead to slashing state services including higher ed and recently lead to the shortening of the school year to balance the budget. The damage wreaked by Osama Bin Laden on this country is nothing compared to the horrific and widespread destruction brought on by the tax "crusaders".
... that is the only solace we can get out of this situation.
GOPer to the bitter end, he is trying to still maintain the insane prison budget while trying to cut education and social services to the bare minimum.
Perhaps this is the strong medicine the state needs to get rid of the insane ballot system that brought us things like prop 13 (the gift that keeps on giving).
My mom worked tirelessly against Prop 13, trying depserately to make people understand what would happen if it passed. Well, they voted for it and look what it got 'em.
Fast forward 25 years and here comes the recall. The people of California didn't care that it was BS. They didn't care that the evidence was with Gray Davis. They treated it like it was one big carnival. A regular California spectacle. Well, I say they got what they deserve. They were warned. I just hope the rest of the country looks at California as an example of what happens when you fall for Con BS. But let's face it, Americans aren't that smart.
As for the poor in California, all I can say is this: you outnumber every other demographic in the state and yet the anti-poor win election after election. Why? Because you don't vote. And if you do, you spit in the faces of the very people trying to help you and vote for the Cons.
Now, hopefully the people who always talk about California seceeding will gain some momentum.
I just hope the rest of the country looks at California as an example of what happens when you fall for Con BS. But let's face it, Americans aren't that smart.
How about:
I just hope the rest of the country looks at California as an example of what is going to happen to them next.
... just like Dilbert serves as an example for how not to run a company. The problem is that business seems to use Dilbert as a how-to rather than see through the mockery. So it will be with California's example. Everyone seems to have bad things to say about how Southern California handled growth (i.e., it didn't) but then they turn around and do the same thing elsewhere.
Congratulations, Republicans. You killed what should otherwise have been the richest state in the nation. I'm sure Nixon and Reagan are proud of you.
Solution: A tax on puffy directing pants. Or on not wearing puffy directing pants.
As long as we're enumerating everything wrong with the way California works...
we should send it along to all of our Repug relatives, friends and neighbors and our own state reps. To paraphrase..."As California goes, so goes the Nation."
Maybe some of the die-hard stupid among us will start to understand that we're all freakin' broke and need to force those who are supposed to be doing the governing to do what's best for us...We The People..
not the fascists running the corporations and banks.!
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Easy peeezy.
They decided that they are tax payers, not citizens.
Tax payers are consumers of government services, and consumers want one thing: something for nothing.
Ding!
Game over.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
I'm sure he's smiling up from hell at the education cuts in particular.
Well, either the people of California repeal their stupid tax laws or watch their state distruct. The recourse of asking the rest of the country for a bailout will simply not fly with the rest of the nation. People like my mother for instance, would ask the question, "Why should we pay for their being stupid?" The time for tough decisions among the populace of California has come and they must be made.
It's the stupid super majority legislation requirement.
Nothing gets passed because we can't get the numbers to pass anything. California has been in a budget stalemate for years.
And let me explain something for your mother--the people of California have been paying for the rest of the country being stupid for decades. We subsidize other states on a federal level and money doesn't come back to our state.
Ask your mother what will happen if the seventh largest economy in the world (California) fails and how that will impact the ENTIRE country.
in other words, California is too big to fail? Where have I heard that before? Oh that's right. The Cons said it when they ran the banking industry into the ground just like they ran California into the ground just like they ran the country into the ground. Even I'm starting to see a pattern here.
Will somebody please tell me why our so-called "leaders" keep trying to play nice with these fuckers? Why they're not using the catastrophic economic situation to pound them into obsurity is beyond me.
See "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Hate Taxes" edited by Stephanie Greenwood, The New Press, 2007 (paperback.)
The people who are ADAMANTLY against taxes are either ideological fools, or tools of those fools. Here is exactly what happens in this country:
1. Taxes are collected.
2. Taxes are DELIBERATELY WASTED in VAST QUANTITIES on WARS and CORPORATIONS.
3. The country suffers and people get angry.
4. The politicians find a way to blame anyone else but themselves and say we have to "defend ourselves" against something; so then we ... go to step 1.
Nothing in the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA says that people who INSIST ON PROFITS have any SPECIAL RIGHTS in this country. So WILL THE COMMON FOLK PLEASE REMEMBER that as soon as enough people WANT it, we can HAVE SOCIALIZED MEDICINE (and TELECOMMUNICATIONS, as we do WATER.) AS SOON AS WE FIGURE IT OUT and stop voting for ANYONE WHO MAKES MORE THAN $200000/year or who can FINANCE their own campaign, the SOONER we'll get RID of the MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND THEIR ELITE MANAGERS - who are just FINE with a "Judge Dredd" world of dog-eat-dog KLINGONS battling over the few crumbs they leave us.
The sooner we TAKE THE MEDIA OVER FOR OURSELVES, the sooner we can HEAR OURSELVES >>EN MASSE<< talking about how our situation SUCKS and figure out how to FIX IT.
-ecsd (Berkeley)
How anyone can support these sadistically evil SOB's in the republican party (and that includes Bluedogs) is beyond my comprehension.
Hey California, how much better off would your lives be if you paid a little more in property taxes? Dipshits!
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Until somebody campaigns on a platform of confiscating the 25% of total wealth the rich assholes stole from the rest of us thanks to the idiotic tax policies of the GOP, nothing will change.
2% of the population has 50% of the wealth. Sorry, no democracy here.
And the trust fund assholes like Grover and Bush love it, as they sit back and watch the bigots and morons fight for a place in the GOP circular firing squad.
I cannot believe how fucking stupid most of the people I know are. We are soooooooo screwed!
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
yeah that's always a real smart move, very forward thinking.
THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA has been a part of neo-con and fascist corporate strategy for some time. and, if you've taken a good look at the t-baggers, mccain/palin rallies...(hell, palin!), the "birthers" or this latest sacrifice of the education of america's children in CA and TX you're most certainly cognizant that it's working brilliantly or you... well... more than likely belong to one of the aforementioned cliques.
the republican (neo-conservative) leaders have passionately embraced over the past fifty years what religions, tyrannies and dictatorships have known since evolution offered up virtues of greed and lust for power to the human species as far back, perhaps, as the dawn of tribal hunter/gatherers: an educated, well-informed populace will never surrender (certainly not with the prideful alacrity we see in today's ultra right-wing base) with such willful obsequious acquiescence to the plutocracy which propels the GOP ideology and platform.
before we as a nation can address, spotlight and defend against this fantastically subversive and perfidious anti-americanism we must stop kidding ourselves about their "actual" agenda, quit being timorous about addressing it openly and adamantly and exudate our petrified denial that we are not living in the slogan america we believed only a short decade or so ago.
and if we don't? ----suppose i suggest you have the answer yourself - all you have to do is close your eyes, take a deep breath and imagine the america we would be living in today if, even just since the turn of the century in 2000, nine short years ago, there had been no opposition party and the republicans were, to this day, were pushing their agenda forward unchallenged.
now, take a look at what we're REALLY up against and how it inherently defies everything america stands for:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/arti...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI&fe...
You're saying it's Idiocracy?
The idiocy is in the Media, where it is routinely proved that 1 + 1 = 5 (when talking about people opposed to reform) yet 2 + 2 = 3 (when counting the reformers.)
The idiocy is in media commentators listening to someone "make their case" using obvious logical fallacies that the commentator simply accepts as reasonable. 4/5 of the audience sees the error, but the error is not corrected, and of course none of the audience is themself invited to comment on, or rebut, what that someone said.
When even 12-year-olds can find the logical holes in arguments being made on Capitol Hill, yet the media REFUSE to discuss the failed logic, we know it is not about news or information - or anything we were promised. It is simply how they do business - to lie to all of us, and then quote the few who believe the lies as being "representative of American opinion."
The big story is we get to watch in plain view our Democracy being stolen from us and denied to us with nothing we can do about it, without getting our hands dirty and maybe bloody. They figured this out with respect to King George of Britain, which is why we GOT a country. Now we have to see it again in reference to the Elites, so that we can KEEP our country (and save the planet.)
The extent to which We the People are disinvited to participate in our own Democracy is the extent to which we must RISE UP and throw the carpetbaggers out.
the country, so get a good look at our immediate future as a nation. If Cali shuts down, the shockwaves will be felt in the rest of the Union.
BTW, whatever happened with the lawsuit to get the ENRON money back? Methinks stalling that was the real reason why Ahnuld was installed. Looks like it's the only thing he did right...
So, tell me, what was so wrong with Gov. Gray Davis? If it's because he wasn't a second rate, chauvinistic, Hollywood Neanderthal pig, then I'd understand.
I can't say it's much better here in Texas.
Maybe the people of California will approve a tax increase, for once. They are very quick to approve all kinds of Propositions through costly ballot initiatives but never seem to approve a way to pay for all of them. Reap what you sow.
People are alarmed at the inmate release that's now being talked about, but this is just one example of the waste that is built into our government. I'm told by friends who work in prisons that there are requirements to provide an astonishing level of medical services to inmates, including but not limited to elective procedures like sex change operations. I'm not advocating that inmates should not receive medical help, but the idea that they are entitled to elective care in excess of the average (insured or uninsured) American is dumb. I daresay the policy would be hard to change, but how much harder could it be than taking away funds promised to local governments and education? Perhaps if prisons were allowed to adjust how they spent their money, they wouldn't have to lay off so many correctional officers and release so many prisoners.
This is just one example of waste I see in state spending. Passed a Caltrans work group lately? It's like they have money to burn.
"People are alarmed at the inmate release [...] I'm told by friends who work in prisons that there are requirements to provide an astonishing level of medical services to inmates [...]"
Strange then how the story has been the LACK of care in prisons, but I am sure they pocketed the $difference and didn't render the care. For every inmate who gets "special care" I am sure another 1,000 are getting SUBSTANDARD care.
They were supposed to release 27,000 prisoners - right? And who will they let go? Murderers? Armed Robbers? Obviously NOT, unless the people making those decisions are ALSO CRIMINALS. If you want to get rid of a LOT of people, MANY MORE THAN 27,000, from California's jails, you ONLY HAVE TO RELEASE PEOPLE IN JAIL FOR MARIJUANA OFFENSES and you're done. Those people are nearly 100% guaranteed not to be a future criminal threat and you save a LOT MORE MONEY.
I suspect the Republican (governor) will insist that the first released shall be the worst, as if to say "you deserve to suffer because we made you broke." We will watch them say "we have no choice but to release (murderers, armed thieves) because letting Marijuana offenders go would be morally wrong ..."
Please never vote for Republicans ever again. Their mindset is a one-way ticket to violence and stupidity in favor of keeping excess profits in their friends' pockets. They don't care about process or people, just profits and a total lack of accountability for anything.
i want to send my sympathies out to you all in california. unfortunately, we in michigan will not be that far behind as we also thought it was cool to cut property taxes for rich people back in the 1990s and now we are facing the same budgetary crisises as you, though not on the same scale.
what are we gonna do?
who's gonna come to our rescue? Goldman Sachs?
i want to send my sympathies out to you all in california. unfortunately, we in michigan will not be that far behind as we also thought it was cool to cut property taxes for rich people back in the 1990s and now we are facing the same budgetary crisises as you, though not on the same scale.
what are we gonna do?
who's gonna come to our rescue? Goldman Sachs?
You wouldn't have a car left. Once you start running out of gas, instead of going to the gas station and topping off (raising taxes), you just get a little bit of gas and you'd start cutting off parts of the car to lighten the load and squeeze more milage out of your increasingly inadequate gas supply. You'd ditch the wipers, the glass in the windows, maybe the side mirrors, the trunk cover, then the hood, possibly the doors, then maybe start ripping off parts down to the frame, and eventually all you'd have left is a frame, an engine, 4 wheels a seat and a steering column.
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