Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego, said the transportation part of the plan includes money for trade corridors that could go to improving traffic flow at the U.S.-Mexico border and access to the San Diego port.
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Sounds like we are getting ready to spend a whole lot of money to make it easier for illegal Mexicans to live in California and to do business here back and forth across the border...and toll roads? More taxation? And how does the concept of "economic growth" come out of more debt and taxation? IMHO, just more pandering and liberal spending insanity.
Senate Republicans last night shot down the Democrat/Schwarzenegger bond deal based on principled arguments against bonding, not reservoirs.
Republican Assemblymen are described as resiting approval because of surface storage but those descriptions are coming from a made, gang member, Kevin McCarthy, and aren't the core issue. The core issue is huge indebtedness, proposed by the Schwarzenegger/Democrats that elected Republican Assemblymen won't swallow. Neither Keene nor McCarthy's replacement Plescia, not yet made men, has offered their opinions for the sake of the party.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
A maddening, terrifying, insane look at how Sacramento lurches forward in the quest to indebt our children
Back in the first week of January, Governor Schwarzenegger called for selling $67 billion in bonds over 10 years to build roads, levees, schools, courthouses, and jails.
For two months, little happened in the way of negotiations with the governor and the two Democrat leaders in the Capitol, Sen. Perata and Speaker Núñez.
The constitutional process to approve a bond in California is fairly straightforward. The legislature has to approve it by a two-thirds vote in both houses before sending it to the people who must vote on it. Naturally, there is a deadline to deal with in that voter pamphlets must be prepared by the Secretary of State, then mailed out, so that you’ll know what you’ll be voting on in June. If only I, as a lawmaker, might know what I will be voting on this Sunday!
So, with months to work on the bonds, here’s what the ugly Sacramento endgame looks like (even you chronic procrastinators will wince).
Yesterday, Thursday, we were to have session at 9:30 am to vote on the bond package. Session was delayed until 10:30. Then delayed again until 1 pm. Then delayed to 4 pm. Then again until 6 pm. At 6 we show up to the Republican caucus and discover that negotiations are still ongoing, and that we will go home, subject to recall to Sacramento on a four hour notice with a likely vote on Sunday.
Of course, if we do vote on Sunday, none of us on the Republican side will have actually read the bills on which we will be voting as they are negotiated between the governor and Democrats with the Republicans viewed as a kind of annoying little brother who keeps interrupting the discussion.
So, what are rumored to be in the bonds? About $48 billion of spending on roads, levees, schools, courthouses, and jails plus the following: parks, subsidized housing, buses, light rail, transit security, port security, a bunch of environmental studies, and the like. In short, a pork-laden grab-bag of debt that only a politician and a lobbyist could love. In fact, of the $48 billion, about $8 billion could be classified as ongoing program expenses (like the money for buses and transit security) more appropriately paid for out of the General Fund than with borrowed money. Add that amount to our roughly $6 billion structural deficit and our newly discovered $6 billion per year public employee pension deficit, and you have about $20 billion in new debt this year alone just to pay for government – that’s $540 more credit card debt for each one of the 37 million people in the state.
Which, speaking of credit cards, reminds me of how I’ll approach this huge mess in the making. I’m thinking of David Spade in the Capital One Credit Cards commercials, “1001 Ways to Say No.”
“What’s your answer to the bonds Assemblyman DeVore?”
“No.”
“But what if…”
“Uh… No.”
“Or…”
“Let me see… No.”
Helluva way to run a government, eh?
All the best,
Chuck DeVore, State Assemblyman, 70th District
www.ChuckDeVore.com