Posted on 02/17/2009 11:27:08 PM PST by americanophile
LOS ANGELES — The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently bereft of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails. Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.
Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. “In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months,” Mr. David said.
After negotiating nonstop from Saturday afternoon until late Sunday night on a series of budget bills that would have closed a projected $41 billion deficit, state lawmakers failed to get enough votes to close the deal and adjourned. They returned to the Capitol on Monday morning and labored into the evening but still failed to reach a deal. They planned to reconvene at 10 a.m. Tuesday to go at it again.
California has also lost access to much of the credit markets, nearly unheard of among state municipal bond issuers. Recently, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the state’s bond rating to the lowest in the nation.
California’s woes will almost certainly leave a jagged fiscal scar on the nation’s most populous state, an outgrowth of the financial triptych of above-average unemployment, high foreclosure rates and plummeting tax revenues, and the state’s unusual budgeting practices.
“No other state is in the kind of crisis that California...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
>>Conservatives are again on the front line fighting Collectivist leeches the like of which are found under every political rock in America.
You bet! I’m bracing for their next action.
Tax and Tax, and tax and spend
tax and tax, and spend again
Excellent.
LOL!
You got it. Obama will act to save government jobs at all cost. I also gotta think they can get to a t least one RINO.
"Scores" and "hundreds" and they are $42000000000 in the hole? It is California! I am not surprised they are not hiring thousands more employees to deal with the problem.
They need to raise the sales tax on marijuana. or stoke up the population and all go blissfully into that good economic night.
They broke it, they bought it?
California will have to fall all of the way to the bottom before it can begin to recover; just like any other drug victim.
"Ach der lieber.......bahnkvupt Kaleefurrneeyah governor
bereft of allies or influence, dey say?"
"Vatta booncha cvap. Ai gotda plenny allies."
"Chonny and Wooty gonna getda jobs as Val-Mart greeters, Home Depot
paint mixers, McD's ketchop pumpers, unt vaiters at Ved Lopstah."
"Ai gotda vunny veeling dat Reepublucan Potty tinks RINOS are pure crapola.""
"I show dem. Ai gonna trow Maria off dah ski livt at Sun Valley. "
Ai getda nashynal symputty when anudder Kenneedey goes kaputz."
I can't watch.
$5 billion a year for illegal aliens can have that effect.............
I don't see the point of disproportionately taxing your best asset. The only 2 ways to tax are with flat sales tax equal on everything or a per capita income tax. I prefer the per capita income tax, because it more realistically deals with expenses according to what is owned and it would raise more eyebrows as to what and how much government spends. I would even go as far to say that if something is a major money maker in the state, top 5, let's say, I would not tax it at all. The reason for this is to send the economy in hyper-drive. Why penalize achievement?
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-- Dylan Thomas
The financial system we live under has its tentacles in every country.
It would be smart to nuke us to stop the pain and Russia is the only candidate for the job.
Did you hear that Putin actually said Obama shouldn't be socialist like he is? It's so surreal, I would rather have that dictator Putin in charge of things rather than this clueless idiot dumbo look-a-like.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.