Posted on 03/06/2010 10:41:06 AM PST by NormsRevenge
California entered 2010 burdened with a dismal unemployment rate (12 percent) and facing a discouragingly large state budget deficit ($19.9 billion).
FDR Memorial, Washington DC We’re still in the worst recession to hit the West Coast since the Great Depression. It’s hard to imagine how the economic news could be worse.
But the independent California Budget Project, in a report issued yesterday, says matters would be worse indeed but for the estimated $85 billion that the federal government has pumped into California’s economy via the stimulus program.
Undoubtedly there has been waste, abuse and what state Inspector General Laura Chick calls “stupid spending.”
Nevertheless, the budget project’s analysis says that when it came to California, the federal spending spree “buffered the impact of the recession” in important ways.
It saved jobs. Perhaps 250,000 more Californians would be out of work without the stimulus, the project reports, citing both government and private estimates.
It helped bring the soaring state budget closer to earth orbit. Lawmakers reeled in the budget with huge spending cuts. But they also were able to use $8.5 billion in stimulus funds to cover the costs of important programs that otherwise also would have been slashed, the analysis says.
It protected our schools, partially making up for deep cuts imposed by the Legislature and the governor. Calfiornia’s K-12 schools are on track to receive $6 billion in stimulus aid, and public universities are getting $1.4 billion more.
Attached to the project’s report is a 20-page chart pricing the benefit to California of a long list of stimulus initiatives. Billion dollar items include: aid to highway construction ($2.5 billion); federal income tax relief ($12.4 billion); increased unemployment benefits ($3.2 billion); and subsidies for health insurance for people thrown out of work ($2.5 billion).
The bad news is that the federal government cannot sustain this level of spending. But if the stimulus program ends in 2010, the shutoff of federal aid would “create a serious drag on the economy at just the wrong time,” the report says, quoting the testimony of Moody’s economist Mark Zandi before a Congressional committee.
And that, the report says, would “further weaken the state’s economy and potentially undermine the national recovery.”
The stimulus is one more example of why ya don’t give addicts the keys to the pharmacy.
after this money has flown thru the kidneys and out the .. uhh,, , what then?
85 billion? I think thats off the mark.
Three cheers for the "stimulus" plan.
$85 billion sounds more like total Federal spending in CA, which would include defense department spending and lots of other things. The whole article looks like pure BS.
“Thank G*d those public sector employees were able to avoid layoffs & salary reductions like the rest of us had to endure.”
That is exactly right. The stimulus money was soaked up by state and local governments. I bet hardly any money wound up funding jobs in the private sector.
This article begs for the B.S.Meter........
.
“waste, abuse and stupid spending.”
Porkulus!
Doesn't sound any different than the standard California budget.
$85 Billion would be about 10% of the entire stimulus of $827 Billion - or was it $872B....no matter!
Supposedly only 20% or less of the stimulus has been allocated and spent. That would mean that CA got 50% of what has been spent so far.
I don’t think so!!
Yellow journalism designed to get Obama votes in CA.
California’s unemployment rate in January was 12.5 percent, up from the 12.3 percent in December and 12.4 percent November 2009, the Employment Development Department says Friday. In January 2009, California’s unemployment rate was 9.7 percent.
Thank Goodness for Porkulus. Things would have gotten real bad without it.
Yeah, it “boosted” unemployment up to what, 12.4% ?
Stimulus provided $8.5 billion boost to California ???
8
85
Hell, who cares anymore.
I think it was reported that CA received about 6.5 billion from BO’s buy the vote campaign. He’s saving the rest for 2012 to use as campaign cash.
A. The state is still going broke. B. There will still be massive layoffs in government jobs anyway.
C. More money was spent in stimulous funding than what the jpbs actually paid
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