California on the Brink of Massive Fiscal Crisis While GOP Minority Blocks Much-Needed Tax Increases
By Susie Madrak Tuesday Feb 17, 2009 2:11pmThe California budget mess is rapidly turning into a full-blown crisis, thanks to being held hostage by some of the legislature's minority Republicans:
LOS ANGELES — The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently bereft of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails.
Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.
Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. “In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months,” Mr. David said.
And what seems to be the problem? This may sound familiar:
Democrats, who had already given into Republicans’ long-held dreams of large tax cuts for small businesses and for some of the entertainment industry and a proposed $10,000 tax break for first-time home buyers, balked at Mr. Maldonado’s request that the Legislature tuck a bill into the package that would allow voters to cross party lines in primaries.
“I think with an open primary, we would have good government that would do the people’s work,” Mr. Maldonado said.
The Party of No, faced with fiscal disaster, invariably holds out for political advantage. Faced with Solomon's decision, they will always insist on cutting the baby in half.
Paul Krugman warns:
Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.
This could be America next.
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tax cuts will save us!!!
The GOP told us so. Oh well.
Hey! California! The GOP has a message for you and your governator.
"HASTA LA VISTA, BAAABY!"
you can be flip about it - but as Kali-for-nia goes, so goes the nation. Kansas ain't lookin' too good right now either. Who's next?
Check out the Eastern Europen Nations - they're all going ka-put!
that's what ya get for believin' in the trickle down.
How'd that trinklin' thing work out for us.
At least the gays ain't destroyin' traditional marriage! WOOOHOOO!
We'll get you, my pretty........and you little dog, too!!!
you'll be WooHooin" in about 9 months.... so we'll see how flip you;ll be then....
and I've never supported trickle anything.
you need to calm down. Enjoy life. Go to Disney World.
That's what GW told us after 9/11.
I'm a pragmatist. In case you've never read any of my posts, I'm one of those folks who knows that 9/11 was perpetrated by elements in our government and that the rest of this current mess has been engineered on purpose.
Don't know how old you are, but I've already seen too much suffering in our world caused by sociopathic "leaders" and ignored by fools like you. There is nothing funny about people losing their job, homes and in some cases their lives. Stupid political differences won't matter in the near future.....hope you enjoy watching your friends, neighbors and family members suffer while the economy implodes.
with reality Amitola. I too have lived through recessions, and economic cycles, and have never seen anything like this in my lifetime. Even when, or if, this economy turns around miraculously somehow, there most certainly are going to be massive changes in store for everyone. Might even be the end of the internet. Who will be able to afford it?
I lived through the S&L crash, the dot com crash, '87 crash, '91 crash.
I've seen banks disappear...please don't make me list them all. I remember that Citibank and a host of other banks had stock prices in the double AND single digits.
Been there. Done that.
Wanna know why those crashes didn't seem as bad. Because the social safety net was better. That's why.
Well, something's certainly trickling down.
Trickle like Dick Trickle?
....was the first to go belly up three months ago.
and then Sarah Palin came along and put a spear in its belly.
If the states cannot issue you your tax refunds -
why are you paying into them?
It's gonna come down to a tax revolt.
If they kept my tax refund, I wouldn't pay them another cent in taxes.
Here comes Bretton-Woods 2, or the New World Financial Order, or whatever they are calling it.
One world currency. One world government. One ring to rule them all.
So, let's cut spending and increase taxes.... did I just hear her say that correctly?
How about instead of increasing taxes on people, they downsize,gasp, the Government of California to be able to afford operational cost, just like any other entity. Bravo to the Republicans for standing up to less Government and no new taxes.
I personally am all for the Fairtax program myself.
What about vital services, schmuckwheat? What's going to pay for them?
look out for big government layoffs in california. this of course will have some impact on local healthCare/insurance and home ownership/foreclosure. kansas is also having big trouble.
For decades fiscal conservatives have told us that tax cuts were the solution to every problem our various government faced. Of course, some people fell for this obvious lie and others, such the Grover Norquist crowd, cheered for the bankrupting of all the governments.
For some reason though, some people still believe the lie and refuse to see reality.
That could never happen here in Kansas. Oh wait...never mind.
and the gop will blame all the problems in calif
on soros and gay marriage....this bullshit the gop
is pulling because they are losing EVERYWHERE is
disgusting. if they can't win unfairly, then they
will destroy everyone and everything they can...
the bastards are bullies/criminals.
It's called a "scorched Earth policy". If I'm losing, I'm darn well going to blow everything up before I go.
The only reason that Arnold is Governator is because he slipped in after the recall of Grey Davis. Arnold could never have survived a GOP primary. They always go for the furthest right wing ideologues they can find.
Anyone else remember Grey Davis' opponent Bill Simon! the man was an absolute troglodyte. If the California GOP had nominated a reasonable candidate Grey would never have even gotten close to the Governors mansion.
I'm not sure how far behind California Florida is, but I'm afraid we may be able to see the cliff from here. Thank goodness Crist is supporting the stimulus and believes it will help our state. Now if the republicans in Tallahassee will come to their senses, we just might avoid going totally over the cliff.
Will you Californians sharpen your pitchforks and light your torches? Or maybe just flood the GOP thugs offices with calls and tell them to wake up?
the government is prepared for that.
Nothing happens without a reason my lad. Remember that.
Bad intelligence on Iraq? HA! No one knew that planes could be used as weapons? HA!
The internment camps are built. The corporatists knew that once they'd finished pillaging the village, the villagers would rise up. They're ready for us.
Remember, no money...it's hard to march with pitchforks and torches against a real army...when you have no food in your belly.
...would Californians whip out the pitchforks and torches?
...seems to me that Californians could just give a little more to the IRS this april 15th and everything would be ok?.....no?
..the voices of sanity.
The reasons to justify fighting in the streets will never be quite enough.
Didn't California toss out one governor a few years back because they felt he was ruining their state? Why don't they do the same with Arnold and his pals? Or why didn't they do it before things got this bad?
California's governor is a Republican. And they NEVAH do anything wrong!
They may never do anything wrong, but they sure as hell have a whole lot of trouble with doing anything right.
They are the right-wing. That needs to be permanently changed to wrong-wing.
Can't they recall legislators in CA? I would say that right about now, they have a pressing need to lay off a certain roughly 1/3 of their legislators.
corrupt and crooked legislators can always be recalled.
you just have to be creative.
but why does an "Open Primary" bill need to be in a budget package? Get the damn budget passed and deal with these unrelated things later.
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments...
Text from the new Pfizer commercial:
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Make sure to tell your doctor if you are a Republican and/or religious fundamentalist as your doctor may need to increase the prescription to compensate for the years of indoctrination.
is a good actor because he takes his shirt off a lot, duh.
....and SCENE.
That's funny! Thanks for making me laugh. Not much funny stuff these days.
You are welcome P.o.P. A friend and I worked on that. Glad I could make you smile.
You made me smile out loud and brought back some memories too. Expecially that part about it could cause you to come up with some really good ideas that usually turn out to be pretty stupid. I used to write those "really good ideas" down so that I wouldn't forget them, but the next morning I couldn't even read what the heck I had written.
I heard a real commercial the other day for some medicine for a disease that I had never heard of and in the warnings, they warned it could cause another disease I had never heard of. I am so behind in my knowledge of diseases I guess.
Though I have never partaken in the "herb", I do believe in the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana. Of course, conservatives would never allow it because of the regulation and taxation part. LOL
I am sure that some of those ideas were not as stupid as the one that tax cuts solve all of our problems.
Yep, no drug could make me that stupid.
What would happen to a republican who raised taxes? I mean do they burst into flames or what? They all seem to think raising taxes is like a mortal sin or something. Don't they understand what taxes do for a state?
Republicans who vote for tax increases are targeted in their primaries by supposedly conservative groups. These groups want to "starve the beast" and follow the Grover Norquist mantra of "making government small enough to drown it".
Short of that, they melt like the witch in the Wizard of Oz.
From your lips ...
Cause right now it's raining a lot in California.
Didn't Bush I and Reagan wind up raising taxes? I guess that's how Reagan went senile. I suppose Bush I's curse was his wife and kids.
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Don't let the Republicans know that Saint Ronny approved a tax increase. It would shatter their bloated image of the overrated actor and traitor to the Constitution.
A traitor to his own profession, as he supported McCarthyism, because he was too chickensh*t to stand up for his supposed (at the time) liberal beliefs.
That's why I consider him a traitor to the Constitution, not just what he approved in Iran-Contra.
..approved tax increases every year he was in office.
That's where Bush 41 got the idea for "Read my lips, I lied about no new taxes!"
I suppose it will take riots on the streets and people dying on politicians' doorsteps to bring these idiots to their senses.
Or maybe not. I, personally, think Republicans are basically a coterie of bullies, and while it may not be exactly news to anyone who's ever known a bully, there is now scientific evidence that bullies enjoy the pain of others.
Take a look at the results of this research.
My hands down favorite lesbian!
I LOVE HER!
so many to choose from nowadays.
the men are wussies.
Here is my hands down favorite.......
..that's what they are. How can any government without Taxes? If we didn't have the last eight years of tax cuts, I would recommend we give the GOP everything they want, no new spending, all the tax cuts, de-regulation, the whole schmear. I would be stocking up on canned goods, water makers, maybe weapons, isn't that what the GOP wants?
Give it to them!
Let the whole damn thing go just to prove a point? NO that's irrational. The GOP are just clinging to those values because in their world, the rich must get richer and screw the little people. They just don't understand that without taxes, no government, big or small will survive or will function. To the GOP, I say: Keep being the obstructionists and hopefully you'll be the obsoletes!
"This could be America next."
It already is. Every economist worth his salt (Krugman included) thinks that the stim-pak was way smaller than it needed to be, and contained too high a proportion of tax cuts. But it, and our Nations recovery, were held hostage to the Republican minorities bankrupt idealogy.
A country with a combined public and private debt 8 times the size of its GNP? I call it bankrupt.
I meant morally bankrupt (as in the Reps ideology), but you're correct on that point too.
As are you.
Absolutely, and Obama caved to the cretins WAY too fast in agreeing to more tax cuts. But wait a minute now...the wingnuts say Obama never consulted with them!
This country is F*CKED.
I am definately not a republican, but with this issue, C&L and all the posters here seem to be ignoring a couple of facts.
CA Income tax rate - Highest in the country
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/sho...
CA Sales tax rate - Highest in the country
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.html
I know that with local and county taxes added in, there are higher sales taxes in the country (ever buy beer in cook county IL? Still gives me shivers...), but as a CA resident for almost 10 years, I would propose that we are already paying more than enough in taxes. In this one instance, I support the people in Sacramento that are saying no to higher taxes, regardless of the reason. When I don't have enough money to pay my bills, I can't go to my boss and say he is obligated to pay me more money. Yes, pitchfork and torches time it is, but not because they won't raise my taxes...
Part of California's problem is that they are forced to rely on income and sales taxes to provide most of the funding for their programs, due to their ludicrous Prop 13.
But apparently, our victory yesterday was premature or shortlived. Hal's back and this time, he's personally threatening me and my family with skinheads and neoNazis. That's a permalink to his site. I'm not asking you all to troll his blog with comments, just to go to the "flag" button on the upper left corner to flag it as violent, offensive, whatever's appropriate.
In the meantime, I'm going to call the Secret Service's field office and the FBI and see if I can get this fat fuck picked up. I cannot fucking believe that Blogger doesn't consider this guy's blog offensive enough to take down.
... Arnold will have to shut down services. I suggest rather than broad cuts across all of California, he target these Reps districts and shut them down completely. After 4 or 5 days of no garbage pickup, the OC might see things a little differently...
If not that, break out the tar and feathers...
-mvc
They've been the biggest winners from Bush's tax policies, so by all rights they ought to be the biggest losers when it comes to benefitting from taxpayer money.
Seriously, possibly the biggest problem with California is, thanks to suburban sprawl and car culture, the ability of the wealthy to sequester themselves from reality.
They drive from their gated, privately patrolled communities or exclusive suburbs to their secure office parks and never have to come into contact with real people, with the exception of their underpaid illegal immigrant gardeners, while they complain incessantly about illegals.
the worst that happens....the dmv gets shutdown
oh woe is me
What is the reasoning in Kansas then? Or New York? Or Detroit's fiscal problems?
Don't worry. Part of the stimulus bill includes money for these states and local economies that are struggling. It never said anything about creating new jobs. Perhaps it will keep services running. Next bill will deal with more.
You think there should be tax increases...in California?
taxcuts don't work, but it's inconceivable that tax increases are going to turn around anyone's economy right now. How could it?
"Turn things around" in California, it's supposed to let the Californians pay for their state government. What are you, asleep?
The real problem is the edict that demands a 2/3 vote to pass anything. It allows the minority way too much power, just as we have in the U.S. Senate.
Stale mate, status quo.
The way I see it is that all of their problems trace back to Prop 13.
I had heard that half of the state budget goes to education and that just seemed absurd. It is not like that in most other states. Actually the number is just under 40% with 30% (of the total state budget) to K-12 and another 10% (again of th etotal budget) to higher ed.
It's the state K-12 expenditure that is the killer. That's typicaly funded through local property taxes. Sometimes there is a statewide portion to equalize poorer and richer towns, bt I've never heard of that large a percentage from state tax revenues.
And it is all due to Prop 13 limiting property taxes to 1% of true valuation. States like Massachusetts with a 2.5% cap are alwatys banging up against it, and most states hover in the 2% range.
Say what you will about the somewhat regressive nature of a property tax, but there you have it. I am not in CA so I do not know if their lavish with their schools but I kinda doubt it. Again, I've purposely ignored any other issues just to make a point about how unusual the lack of property tax revenue is driving the state deficit.
OK....California (and probably many more states and cities) have to drastically increase taxes, while the fed is decreasing taxes, and this is supposed to fix the debt problems how?
The SJ Merc claims that one of the big problems in the state are things that voters mandated in some of the initiatives. We spend more on prisons in CA than on schools - I wonder how much the three-strikes rule contributed to that?
Healthcare for low income people was also something cited as a big cost item.
So, basically, if people want these things, they have to pay for them, and I'd think that means higher taxes.
The Merc also said that Maldonado wanted three things: "He called for denying legislators their salaries when they fail to pass a budget on time; refusing raises for legislators when the state is running a deficit; and eliminating partisan primaries"
The first two seem reasonable, the third seems out of place in a budget. I'm as much a Democrat as they come, but I don't see what having an open primary will buy the Republicans? Do they think they'll be able to vote in mass for a weak Democrat in the primaries, so they can defeat them in the general election? It would seem it would work both ways.
so more people can go deeper into debt and work more to earn less???
now its time for me to say....
I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!
when that assinine recall election was done on davis, i warned everyone to vote against, as the problem was never davis, it was our insane legislature
the fact remains...THE FEDS OWE US BILLIONS....WE WANT OUR FUCKING MONEY BACK
I CALL ON ALL CALIFORNIANS....JOIN ME ON A MARCH TO ALL THE RED STATES THAT TAKE OUR MONEY...THEN GIVE OUT TAX BREAKS TO BUSINESSES TO STEAL THEM FROM OUR STATE
LETS TAKE BACK OUR MONEY
ITS TIME FOR A NEW CIVIL WAR
WHOS WITH ME
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The problem is the legislature (gee The Democrat one that's been in charge for like 12 to 13 years) it spends more than it has even in better economic times and they refuse to attrack business and jobs into the State.
You can't keep asking fewer and fewer taxpayers to pay more and more to support all the garbage and waste.
Adios California, Grow the tax base by getting business back here and creating jobs or watch the ship sink because you can't stop growing and spending while us in the Private Sector are expected to take on the whole load and pay pay pay. Where's Rob Reiner and pals with their checkbooks to make a donation to the State of California?
Remember when the Reps were raving about how wonderful Ah-nuld was and trying to change the constitution so he could run for president? Yeah, I guess being a bad actor but good at making $$ does not a governor make, eh?
approach to the people of california is the equivalent of driving his Humvee on the sidewalks against pedestrian traffic. That situation in ca just is too unworkable no matter how you look at it.
How can property and other taxes refresh when people are losing their homes and jobs? What average worker will consume to generate these taxes when there is such outflow of dollars at both ends burning the middle?
From below billions outflow into mexico while simultaneously sinking the boat of services. From above the dollars don't flow back down to subsidize putting out all those fires etc., etc., etc.
Ahnuld seems to have plenty of taxpayer cash to spend whenever thugs want to Ambush a law through "special elections" in midstream they know only a small portion of the voting public will be on task enough to head off at the pass.
Not a californian or understand enough about how that state works, but this obviously self-destructive setup is imploding even faster than most states the second federal money was cut from programs and private contracts got the dollars like a bad case of dysentary on the entire system. Countrywide.
They have a job and income-they don't care about the people. The legislators have an income to pay their bills--so "f##k-off" I got mine you get yours philosphy of the republicans. I am sorry California--you are getting the shaft AGAIN.
Prop 13 isn't insane. If we didn't have that we would be paying out the roof property taxes as well. As it is, my friends in Nevada, Arizona and Colorodo are paying less in property taxes than I am and they don't have anything like my sales or income tax.
Prop 13 came about because there was zero fiscal restraint. This was a kick in the butt for the Pols in Sacramento to do some. If they showed any kind of discipline over the last 20 years we wouldn't be hurting like this.
We have commissions that don't do anything that serve as retirement havens for termed out legislators. We have federally mandated but unfunded expenses for immigrants. We have labor unions that have driven entitlements way beyond the norm for other states' employees - primarily because our legislature does not allow the normal adversarial relationship of labor vs. employer. Basically, they gave away the store. We have gerrymandering that perpetuates the exteme positions in our legislature. All safe districts, nobody has to compete for the middle.
I'm a liberal in most ways, but I'm an overburdoned taxpayer as well. The corruption of one party running things for too long has set in. We have to make our dollars work smarter. I'd rather face the consequences of a state bankruptcy with some federal court cleaning up the mess than pay more taxes.
i think you have said it all
now, how do we fix the mess...cuz ahnold and the idiots in the legislature aint gonna do squat
First we vote all of them OUT of office. and we also do a referendum to end criminal penalties for dugs, as well as prison for non violent crime. It is more likely for a shoplifter to go to jail than it is for a banker who just swindled us out of our retirements.
We need comprehensive change and so long as people identify as Repub. or Demo. WE are fucked.
Obama said it best however. "Grow Up". A message we need to send to our reps and all the slackers in for the free ride.
I could rant but I'll save myself the embarrassment.
The people who owned homes in California prior to Prop 13 revolted. We were posting signs in front of our homes with the property tax cost written in big numbers. If you lived in a decent neighborhood, you could be paying five-figure property taxes. It was obscene. Even with the current cap on property taxes, I'm still paying more than $7,000/year. This is absurd. Between our state tax, sales tax and the property taxes, Californians are being raped by state and local government. The problem, of course, is that we are now in a position where the entire economic system of the state will collapse if the state's deficit isn't addressed. I'm willing to pay more taxes based on my income, but Prop 13 is sacrosanct.
don't you guys know that all "democracies" end up like this?
Look at the bright side, those of you who are unemployed can go into business doing the "necessary" work that the "government" will no longer be doing. It will be a good lesson for you to find out just how "necessary" the "government" isn't.
No new taxes will always come back to kill the governmental budget. If a state can not raise new taxes, the state will go broke. Goverment Econ for Dummies
Sorry but I can't abide by this. We are being taxed to death in California. How about a consumption tax or some other tax. I can't handle paying the state another 1400 dollars a year. It is absurd.
and when you or your neighbor has a fire, you guys can take a whizz on it since there'll be no fire dept. ditto for the cops, teachers, and nurses and doctors. hell, it's your choice.
If the market demands firefighters there will be firefighters. If the market demands cops (it won't) there will be cops. If the market demands teachers there will be teachers. If the market demands health care providers there will be healthcare providers, etc, etc, etc.
With the competitive demands of the market, waste & corruption are not feasible, therefore rare. Less waste and corruption means better value for the consumers dollar.
I'm getting excited, I can hardly wait for the collapse of all "governments".
life on that space platform patch of dirt? There must be a market for hundreds of thousands of Blackwater (Xe) Halliburton, Prison, Drug and scores of other grossly bloated private enterprises that were NOT A FACTOR 8 years ago, funded by taxpayers too, while removing citizen protections from our food supply and criminal gov't activities, wars on (fill in the blank w/current irrational fear concept) and god-knows-whut-else huh, "virtue".
That is a drain of TRILLIONS while the garroting the function of states at the same time. Grand theft all in the last 8 years.
One half of your brain functions independently from the other half. Which is why reason is a waste of time with you people.
I think that you have a tendency to only see what you want to see.
.
One way or another you'll have to pay the piper.
During this fiasco Arnold took 12 staff to Napa California and treated them to a $4,200 lunch and charged it to the taxpayers. He also gave his staff members about a 40% salary increase as soon as he took office. If you don't believe me do some research through the Capital Weekly, a paper that gathers information about staff salary and hires for the state of California. They get their information directly from the state's personnel office. Government salaries are considered public information. The $4,200 lunch information was posted on Arnoldwatch.com. Yeah, he's fucking conservative, that is with his own money but he likes to spend the states. The deficit went from 14 billion when Davis was governor to 42 billion with Arnold destroying the economy. And who likes to spend money?
Aquaman for Governor of California!
http://www.comicvine.com/aquaman-is-californi...
open z books
Simple solution: If Republican won't raise taxes and continue to clammer for tax cuts. Tell them the cuts will hit ONLY THE REPUBLICAN DISTRICTS.
Here's a 'golden' opportunity for the 'Golden State': end cannabis prohibition, and tax cannabis sales. Set the stage for economic recovery by ending the DrugWar...which we can't afford to fund, anymore, anyways, seeing as we got a real, live Depression-in-all-but-name going on.
And before someone says this is impractical, I remind said naysayers that economic impetus was the real reason why alcohol Prohibition was ended during the last Depression.
All the modern day 'Ardent Dry's, Nervous Nellies, Carrie Nations and raving Billy Sundays who continue favoring drug prohibition will soon have to face Joe Sixpack, who's looking at his pink slip and wondering why fat-cat bureaucrats are still clamped on the Gub'mint teat while he's being told there's no money for social safety net programs, so go away and starve in silence like a good little Prole is supposed to.
And this is because the bureaucrats say they need the moolah to (superhero echo chamber voice) "Save the chil-dren from druuuuuuuugs!" when ol' Joe will be more worried about feeding and housing them. That's 40 Billion a year to go to those social safety nets, frayed to spiderwebs after 30+ years of Rethug rule.
It's time to prioritize (hell, it's time for frakkin' triage!) as to what we actually need as a nation and what we can actually afford, and that means anything that truly doesn't support the commonweal must go...and if anything fits that description, it's the DrugWar. $40 Billion dollars worth of useless lard; how about it?
on taxing something that everyone who can will be growing in their landscape.
you don't shop for produce?
and it's not taxed.
that was not my line of reasoning. But now, for the first time I use the Ignore user feature.
Wasn't there a budget impasse that led to the recall election that ended up with Schwarzenegger as governor? Maybe there should be another recall. I mean. If the governor can't get along with the legislature, isn't it the governor's fault?
Do you remember in the 1950s when everyone was looking everywhere for Communists? It seemed like they could be anywhere, even under the bed, sabotaging America. Well, the new saboteurs are the Republicans. I think there needs to be a Congressional committee to investigate the Republican Party to root out the foreign agents who are trying to sabotage and destroy America. We could call it something like The Committee on Un-American Activities. That's the only explanation I can come up with for the bone-headed way of thinking the Republicans have exhibited.
I would submit that acting like socialist/communist and growing governement to control all aspects of your life is the bigger problem and why we are where we are.
Government is way too big and spending way too much. The proof is in the budget deficits we can't afford and it's been going on for a long time with the Democrat controlled State House. California has done it's best to drive business out of the State. You can't keep spending more money on government while you shrink the number of tax payers.
Will survive this. Calif has an economy roughly the same size as Spain's.
I've said it before, You can't run Calif. All you can do is hang on.
But these GOPers in the legislature seemed determined to force the state govt' to collapse.
We'll remember that.
Not to mention Calif pays out 1 dollar to the Feds and gets back 87 cents in return.
No business can run like that.
So, this means some other state is going to get screwed. More than likely a small producing state.
I'd also like to add, That the govt' has to stop funding farmers.
Subsidizing farmers is a waste of money. Now that all the farmers are gone. And only conglomerates are left. Just another scam at the taxpayers expense.
Monsanto on Medicaid.
It's no surprise that California and other states are in the shape they're in. The taxpayers can thank our crooked elected officials for catering to the every whim of ILLEGAL immigrants by forking over BILLIONS of dollars every year in FREE HEALTH CARE, FREE HOUSING, FREE EDUCATION, PAYING SOCIAL SECURITY AND OTHER BENEFITS to the low life SOB'S AT OUR EXPENSE!
WHY do they do this? One reason: TO GET ELECTED!!!! The cold, hard truth is that our elected officials care NOTHING for the TAXPAYERS! They're only riding on the Liberal bandwagon of so-called "Political Correctness" and trying to appease the overwhelming influx of illegals that are taking over America.
By not forcing Illegals to CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING, yet continue to HAND OUT all of the TAXPAYERS money, is doing nothing but DRAINING OUR ECONOMY! IT'S COMMON SENSE! Unfortunately, our elected officials have none!
It's time for a TAXPAYER REVOLUTION!!! WE THE PEOPLE need to rise up for OURSELVES and TAKE CONTROL or we will lose a lot more than a few jobs, we will LOSE AMERICA!
FDIC banks are setting up for easy gov't access into citizen accounts.
These "leaders" still don't get it. There are two ways to have more money, work more or spend less. It's time to try the spend less path. I bet the common citizen can think of hundreds of ways to do that.
Not to say both parties don't have issues, but how can some of you folks point to Republican's in California's State Houses as the problem and hurting California? They have been such a small minority for years? Good grief how shallow and detatched from reality can you folks get? The Democrats in California drove this ship into the ground with all this spending and failure to enforce laws.
The bottom line is the State's Government is way too big and spends way too much money here in California. Good grief you can't keep increasing the size of government by hiring more folks and starting new programs. News flash it costs more tax dollars to pay for those jobs and programs.
Private industry is taking it in the shorts, and yet Government who is supported by all this private industry wants to keep growing and spending more? Insane, they need to cut back and get a gripe on reality.
California needs to change it ways and draw in private industry instead of running them out of the State with the insane environmental regulations, taxes and costs to do business. Jobs created in the private sector are the only way the government is going to get more money. We need more taxpayers not fewer paying more. How about we allow additional oil production to occur? It could generate some income for the State? But nooooo, we would rather create more government jobs that require more tax payer dollars.
Yes, California does drive out a lot of companies with its environmental regulations and heavy taxes. But one of the reasons those companies wanted to come to California in the first place is because it is a great place to live. Sure, we have a big earthquake every 20 or so years, but we have moderate weather, beaches, ski resorts, theme parks, desert spas and beautiful forests all within driving distance of one another. If those companies would rather move to another state that has a lower standard of living in order to avoid paying taxes, that's their choice. But I think the state needs to make an effort to maintain the quality of life it has been able to offer, rather than trying to accommodate a lot of struggling businesses that couldn't care less about the state. What we need to do right now is find our way out of this terrible crisis without destroying what makes California such a great place to live.
There's no hope then. What is the State trying to maintain? A huge deficit and poverty? The loss of all industry? How do you maintain a quality of life when you are broke? Throw struggling business to the curb? WOW, that's the life blood of the State's funding and people's ability to live with a decent standard of living.
Without business the State doesn't have a dime to spend, whose going to pay the tax bill for the billions they want to spend? Seriously you can have all the beaches, resorts, etc, and we can maintain and protect them in a common sense manner, but you still need jobs for people to live here and have a good quality of life for the State to operate.
Honestly you don't have to be insane with environemental regualtion and you don't have to have the highest tax rates. California could have done so much more through the economic booms, if only it had been sensible and attracted industry rather than drive them out. It lost industry that wasn't an environmental concern.
The State has overspent for a long time it's time to change the course we have gone down by growing Government and having overbearing regulation and costs. More taxpayers leaving the State isn't going to help. Being sensible with conservation and spending is our only hope.
For decades fiscal conservatives have told us that tax cuts were the solution to every problem our various government faced. Of course, some people fell for this obvious lie and others, such the Grover Norquist crowd, cheered for the bankrupting of all the governments.
For some reason though, some people still believe the lie and refuse to see reality.
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An up phase, a down phase. All else is lies by both political wings.
People complained about a mild recession in 2001, when the recession needed to be much deeper, to offset the excesses of the 1990's boom.
A housing bubble was engineered to prevent that from occurring.
People went from complaining about falling stock prices, to cheering about rising home prices, while complaining about rising gasoline prices.
The excesses of the housing bubble added onto the excesses of the 1990's boom, have caused the need for an even deeper recession.
The Kondratieff cycle has 4 phases, or seasons. This cycle keeps repeating itself. The cycle does not care about Reaganomics or Obamanomics. Inflation begins in Spring, accellerates in summer, then peaks. Fall brings declining inflation and a 1920's boom.
Winter brings deflation, to complete the cycle. That is the reality.
The Case Shiller CPI, which uses home prices instead of owners equivalent rent, which is used in the government CPI, indicated the CPI fell 5% year over year in December- deflation. Kondratieff Winter.
A Reslugs Wet Dream is being a obstuctionist, partisan, dumb-ass, that hates America and wants it to fail.
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