Posted on 04/19/2009 9:36:38 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
It took the greatest drop in state revenues since the Great Depression to crack it open, but California's dysfunctional budget process finally has been laid bare.
Now the question is, how can we fix it permanently? That consideration should frame the way voters analyze the initiatives being offered on the May ballot.
Time and again, California has committed to spending hikes during good times that it can't afford when the bad times eventually come. This cycle needs to be broken.
If we had kept spending at the level of Gov. Gray Davis' first budget in 1999 (adjusted for inflation and population growth), our budget would be balanced today, despite the economic downturn. Instead, spending (especially on health care) grew dramatically, and we again find ourselves in crisis.
Proposition 1A would smooth out our budget cycle. Excess revenues collected during boom years would be put into a reserve fund that could be used only to fill budget gaps in years when revenues fall or to pay off bonds. If Prop. 1A had been enacted 10 years ago, we would have faced only a $5.4-billion problem, instead of a $42-billion one.
Some tax opponents are advocating a "no" vote on Prop. 1A because it also would extend for as long as two years temporary tax increases passed to alleviate the current crisis. But we should not reject a chance to curb government overspending and higher taxes permanently because of temporary tax increases.
Yes, higher taxes mean fewer jobs, but so does a broken budget system.
...
Three other proposals on the ballot are being cast as necessary to solving our immediate crisis. But they are also a mixed bag.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
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a mixed bag like 1A and 1B.
Jaa .. poop and vomit
Sorry Tom, No cigar.
There are no “temporary” tax hikes.
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with this latest nail in the coffin,, I have no candidate to even contemplating when casting a ballot for anyone in the 2010 GoP field except for DeVore in 2010 v. Boxer.
Ray Haynes, Yooohooo..
After all, why should the employees of the state of California enjoy full benefits and complete salary when the unemployment rate is over 11%?
Population growth is a factor - but the words aren’t refined enough.... non tax-paying population would be the correct terminology.
Our resources are being taken out by those who do not contribute.
They are unionized. You would have to negotiate that with a union and it would never happen.
Tom, that was a good try. Taxing to save taxing does not work. Use the three letter word “CUT”.
I know many friends who have family members and know of others who have taken pay cuts at their private industry jobs because of necessity and the desire to keep employment until this mess is over. California is all about being “fair” right? I think your idea is a very good place to start in turning the state around financially. And it would help remind the bureaucrats that money doesn't grow on trees.
Bingo.
This whole thing is like a Perfect Storm script..
It would be nice to eliminate the multi-layers of bureaucracy but even the great aRnold could not slay the unions and their stranglehold.
2. Reduce the pay of all state employess making over $3,300 a month. Move the retirement benefits back to the level of 1998. No 3% at age 50.
3. Privatize two prisons, rinse and repeat.
4. provide school vouchers at 80% of the current expenditure per student.
5. Eliminate all rwequirements which specify how much any program gets from the budget.
7. Public employee unions may not contribute to the campaigns of those with whom they negotiate their contracts or who vote on their contracts.
8. Governor, 1 six year term. Legistature 2 4 year terms.
Reduce income tax 20%. Reduce state capital gain 50%.
9. Plan and start building 20 nuclear power plants. End of part 1.
What happens if California declares bankruptcy and tears up all the union contracts? I fail to see what is so valuable about bureaucrats...
I just know my life would be so much simpler and easier if most of them got "real" jobs and left the taxpayers alone...
Ya see, ya got your entitlement programs and your voter mandates and then ya got the frivolous legislation and spending of the Gub&legislature.
They say they have cut as much as they can w/o severely affecting the kiddies or citizens of the state...
NewsFlash.. It ain’t about the kiddies or the old folk.. It’s the unions and state funding recipients including illegals and politicos running ponzi schemes masquerading as Gubamint sucking the tits dry
All are very good suggestions... I like your school voucher idea... it automatically saves the state 20% for every child that the parents take out of the school system...
California's problem is Californians. We have voted for propositions that expand gov't and we've voted for politicians that expand gov't. And now we are not willing to do anything to pare back the monster we've created.
Hell, the pensions that are in place for politicians and gov't employees are alone enough to bankrupt the state. So if we are going to point fingers we should point them where they belong - at the people of the State of California.
This RINO wants to close the State’s budget gap by WIDENING ours, every taxpayer’s budget gap.
CA Repub’s are a huge, corrupt embarrassment. In the pocket of unions. Big dummies are killing our state economy.
Rep. Tom McClintock even came out endorsing (and offering funds to) RECALL one of his party’s CA politicians.
That’s how bad the RINOs in CA are.
“California’s problem is Californians.”
Except that when Californians vote overwhelmingly to reduce and eliminate benefits to illegals (209, 187) some faggot judge overrules the will of the Californians.
Please. We vote for bond measures every year that increase the deficit. And we overwhelming vote for politicans who are tax and spenders. The federal judiciary isn’t pointing a gun at us, forcing us to do those things.
The only things harder to kill than my ex or a vampire are new gov’t taxes or programs.
The California Democrat party (including their governor) has already given California the fix it wanted. California is going to go out like John Belushi did.
Wull, where was my gag and vomit RINO warning??? (euuuuu, how graphic!!!)(coarse grin)
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