Posted on 07/21/2009 4:57:49 PM PDT by reaganaut1
...
[R]elative to other places, [California] has historically been a pretty good bargain, with a low-cost, enviable higher education system, subsidized energy and an abundance of services for those down on their luck.
But three decades of staggering population growth — combined with three high-impact recessions, budgeting by ballot box, federal mandates, an unusual tax structure and the rising cost of social services — have finally combined for disastrous results, and the ramifications are now reaching across every aspect of life in this state.
The California dream is, for now, on hold, as demonstrated by the state budget that lawmakers and the governor agreed upon late Monday. At no point in modern history has the state dealt with its fiscal issues by retreating so deeply in its services, beginning this spring with a round of multibillion-dollar budget cuts and continuing with, in total, some $30 billion in cuts over two fiscal years to schools, colleges, health care, welfare, corrections, recreation and more.
... [T]he protracted national recession — rather than the shorter, more regional ones that bedeviled the state before — has delivered a big hit on the state’s greatest source of revenue, income taxes on rich people. Further, the state’s structural deficit has become exceedingly pronounced after years of accounting tricks and borrowing.
The net result is that Californians will find state offices closed three days a month. The poor will go without health care in a state that practically invented the health care safety net and as some financially embattled states seek to expand coverage for children.
Classroom sizes are about to explode, and state universities are furloughing professors, cutting class offerings and seriously reassessing, in the case of the University of California, whether the system can remain one of excellence for state residents anymore.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
(1) An increasingly Hispanic population, including many illegal aliens, that commits more crimes, earns less money, uses more social services, and costs more money to educate (because of language and other issues) ON AVERAGE than whites (or Asians) has driven up expenses and reduced tax revenues.
(2) Environmental and other regulations increase energy costs and drive out business.
(3) Powerful state workers unions make government more expensive than it needs to be.
How willfully blind can the Times be?
Apparently the California dream is to spend money forever without limits
At no point in modern history has the state sustained a 6-8% annual growth rate in State spending for over a decade, well beyond both population increases AND inflation.
The current solution won’t work. The deficit will be back in three months. The revenue’s are sinking faster than forecasted and unemployment is still on the rise. The local govt’s won’t fork over the money..they don’t have it, and the retirement funds will post a bigger than expected loss. It is 50% smoke and mirrors.
Figures they would fail to mention the growing illegal population....which is uneducated, low skilled, and, quite frankly...not motivated.
Chapter 13 Ping..
I have personally seen many of these immigrants and some are the most motivated people in the world.
Who do you know who would be willing to spend $5k to be taken across the border so he can stand around in a Home Depot parking lot looking for day labor jobs? Once he gets a job, he gets no lunch break, works harder all day than anyone I know and probably gets cheated on his pay.
Now there are also criminals and lazy ones for sure, but I would trade an illegal for a US citizen welfare drone any day. In fat I think we ought to have a substitution system. Bust an illegal working a job and deport a welfare drone to Mexico instead.
No surprise there. I hate what they've done to this State. My family has been here five generations.
The fact that we have 12% of the nation’s population and 32% of its welfare recipients is a nightmare, not a dream!
The California Dream has been destroyed by liberals who think that everyone who lives here and doesn’t work somehow deserves every form of government assistance imaginable, whether they are here legally or otherwise.
I can hear it now. “Do we cut African Superiority Studies or algebra?”
“Hispanic Rich Experiences or US History?”
“Scottish law as it applied to any US situations or English Lit”
Decisions, decisions.
Yes, indeed. Three decades of control by tax and spend liberals in Sacramento and four sanctuary cities later California is reaping the results of their liberal ways.
“And the protracted national recession has delivered a big hit on the state’s greatest source of revenue, income taxes on rich people.”
The liberal wealthy elite Obama supporters should feel a sense of joy and pride in spreading their wealth around.
If your pay was quadrupled, you’d probably work a lot harder and take a great deal of crap from your boss too.
Unfortunately the effect is temporary, and their spawn definitely do not inherit that work ethic. If they did, you wouldn’t see scores of them on welfare or high school dropout rates exceeding 30%. i.e. they would turn out more like the highly productive Chinese immigrants.
Their long-term rates of social dysfunction are eerily similar to what one sees in Mexico. Go figure, huh?
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