Posted on 02/21/2004 6:58:11 AM PST by calcowgirl
Edited on 04/12/2004 6:06:12 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Even if enacted precisely as prescribed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal would leave the state with a $7 billion budget hole in the 2005-06 fiscal year and "large operating shortfalls" for the next half-decade, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
My guess is that a plentiful supply of cheap land and other resources, combined with a wonderful climate which attracted all sorts of people, had a lot to do with it.
It had all to do with the culture and people in the 1950's. Mexico used to own California so this is their second time around, and not doing much better. The Native Americans before them didn't benefit that much from cheap land, resources, and nice weather either.
Why don't the road builders sue the state for breaking the law?
It doesn't make sense she criticized both the law and the failure to honor it. Which is it?
The cause is socialism. The effect is an influx of takers.
30 years later I returned to find everything had changed. The Village was overcrowded and full of big buildings. The shops were all fast food and junk. My favorite tailor was quitting business. I asked him what happened. He said landlords were able to raise rents so high that only trashy shops could survive. Housing and all other costs reflected the same shortage of land.
I had other similar experiences. During the '60s students coming from New York and other Eastern cities universally commented that they could rent a nice two-bedroom apartment for what it cost to rent a run-down garage in the east. Men who'd been in California since the '20s, or came from families who'd been there long before, said the situation was even more extreme back then.
I think this ever increasing shortage of land - which is reflected in its price - is at least as important as culture or socialist benefits in creating our current problems. If you removed Mexicans and other poor immigrants you would reduce some of the pressures on our educational, health, and housing infrastructure. Cutting off benefits might drive out many people. But the basic situation would remain the same.
You have only to look at New York and other Eastern cities - where land shortage occured earlier - to see what I mean.
It doesn't make sense she criticized both the law and the failure to honor it. Which is it?
While Prop 42 provided that certain revenue would go to transportation projects, it also provided that funding could be suspended under certain circumstances. Prior budgets suspended funding, as does Arnold's budget proposal. As a result, the state cannot adequately plan transportation projects or accomplish them in a cost effective manner. I think LAO is looking for any way to stabilize the revenue source so that large projects can be planned and completed, without having to stop/start or modify projects midstream when the legislature decides to raid their funds. One method is to throw Proposition 42 out altogether and replace it with a defined revenue source (that can't be suspended). Another method would be to revise Proposition 42 to eliminate the suspension provision. Either method would require a constititional amendment.
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