Posted on 08/03/2012 11:12:19 AM PDT by SmithL
California drivers pay fees for smog checks, vehicle registrations and new tires, all supposedly for programs that benefit roadway use.
Consumers pay fees to recycle beverage containers, televisions and computers. Doctors and accountants pay license fees to regulate their industries.
But for more than a decade, the special funds collecting these dollars have served a second purpose: helping California pay for schools, social services and prisons that are supposed to be funded by general taxes.
California has 560 funds deemed "special" because in theory they're walled off from general state expenditures. In the face of two recessions, however, California reached deeper into those funds for purposes that fee payers never intended. The state now owes $4.3 billion to special funds, more than five times the amount owed in 2008.
State leaders argue that special funds have enough extra money to pay for more critical state needs. Some special fund reserves grew after the state imposed furloughs on all state workers starting in 2009.
But program advocates say the borrowed money should have gone toward intended uses like reducing pollution or better enforcement of health care fields. Or, they suggest, it should have gone back to consumers and professionals through lower fees.
"Any of these funds set up by ratepayer money needs to be spent on its intended purpose," . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
It looks like they left a huge loophole by forgetting to prohibit the state from borrowing from the funds.
Technically, by taking the cash out of the fund and replacing it with an IOU, they haven’t “spent” the money. But, the reality is everyone knows it will never be paid back.
Notice that they never have to “dip into state funds” to pay the legions of useless administrative drones who mostly cruise Facebook all day, or who stand around staring at manholes.
No, there isn’t a loophole. The Commiefornia governor and Dem legislature are just lawless. Long ago we passed a proposition that fuel tax money can’t be spent on anything but transportation, yet to this day they are still “borrowing” that money for the General Fund budget shortfall, so the welfare Queens and ilegal aliens can keep up their EBTs. Meanwile, our roads are breaking to pieces. But it’s OK, soon you’ll be able to get anywhere on a 140 mph train powered by skittles and suspended from winged horses.
California government is a criminal enterprise. The Mafia has nothing on California politicians.
The day they cut administrators, management levels, or sell off administration buildings is the day I can begin to believe they are serious.
California is quickly becoming a failed state.
Yes, that was a brutally honest assessment of his area and what eventually awaits the rest of us Californians. This CHANGE is coming much faster than I would ever have expected 20 years ago. I thought it would creep. Since the early 1990s, California’s suicidal implosion has been coming at breakneck speed.
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