Posted on 02/17/2009 6:56:20 PM PST by Steelfish
FEBRUARY 18, 2009
The Decline of California They still think they can tax their way out of this one.
If you thought Washington's stimulus debate was depressing, take a look at the long-running budget spectacle in California.
The Golden State's deficit has reached $42 billion, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to furlough 20,000 state workers (go ahead, make our day), and as we went to press yesterday Democrats who control the legislature had blocked lawmakers from leaving until they finally get a deal.
It's sad to watch.
The Golden State -- which a decade ago was the booming technology capital of the world -- has been done in by two decades of chronic overspending, overregulating and a hyperprogressive tax code that exaggerates the impact on state revenues of economic boom and bust.
Total state expenditures have grown to $145 billion in 2008 from $104 billion in 2003 and California now has the worst credit rating in the nation -- worse even than Louisiana's.
It also has the nation's fourth highest unemployment rate of 9.3% (after Michigan, Rhode Island and South Carolina) and the second highest home foreclosure rate (after Nevada).
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
This is so bloody absurd. The Speaker alone has a staff of 130 employees!!!!!!
Most likely a nuke will go off some where and the military will take over and fumigate DC, the press, and the electoral process in the aftermath.
Can't happen too soon.
No, a realist.
I was talking about a response to a WMD attack resulting in martial law and an interruption in the normal electoral process, not sure what you are implying.
Oh, man, I'd love to see the day when those self indulgent public retirees are the only ones left in the state. They'd all be staring at each other wondering how they're going to pay the taxes to fund their pensions! And their answer would be: increase their pension payments! LOL!
(I left Cal in the '94 downturn. Unlike others, I was walking away from a very lucrative job. But I've never missed it a bit.)
“I’m ready for a FREEPER meet In Sacratomato!
Can you make it if we can make it happen?”
I’ll be there.
Remember the stories that the next big earthquake would tip California into the sea???
Well...it’s happening...just not the way the kook scientists expected. :)
I'm a native-born San Franciscan. We used to have a Republican mayor and a decent town. Then the lib a**h**es moved here from elsewhere and screwed it up. Very few of the natives are left, practically everyone here is from somewhere else. Liberals are the enemy of everything good and right.
Well sir, I apologize for misunderstanding.
No problem
I’ve thought about moving to Texas but my wife won’t leave California (for now). Maybe she heard about that water? Anyway, I’m always pointing out to friends the fact that San Francisco was solid Republican from 1912 through 1964. The insanity in San Francisco started with the Dems taking over in 1964, and weirdos flooded in ever since then. So goes California too.
“we need to TAX POOR PEOPLE”
They should pay the highest taxes, they use the most services!
I spent the last 12 years in San Francisco. Believe me, Californian’s are nuts. Idiots. There is a reason the state is going to hell in a handbasket. I don’t blame Arnold. I don’t blame the liberal legislature (which is doing the most active damage to the state). I blame an uninformed, immoral electorate that is getting the exact government they deserve. The problem is, we are also getting the government THEY deserve.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
We have the same plague in Georgia, too- they wreck the cities with taxes & regulations and too damn much gooberment, then decide it's time to find more open space, cheaper living... and head for the coast...
First thing you hear from these plague-bearers?
"Gee, this is do nice, but you need ___, like we have in Atlanta."
I lived there for several years and believe it ahad to at one time been the greatest state.
Now when I visit I have to pay 50 cents more per gallon of gas than in Texas and there are endless regulations that exist. It has turned into a Northeast type nanny state with better weather.
Am thankful that I do not pay income taxes.
All the problems that exist in the northeast lib states and California will be splilt on us here as they drag us down into the ghetto as they did to themselves.
Share the misery is their mantra.
Ya know, it SHOULD be easy. They should take the last budget that fitted within the amount of money they have, work it over, and pass it.
I really dislike those people. I wish they’d stay away from Forsythe county and I wish they stop building all those unneeded strip malls along 306.
Clarify something for me please.
I thought Cal’s budget began on July 1st. Why all these shenanigans now?
Are they still wrangling over the 08/09 budget?
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