California addiction to debt proves costly

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 3/6/11 | Editor

[SmithL]

Schools, taxes, state workers' pensions, prisons - all of these topics get plenty of airtime in Sacramento when our elected leaders are wrestling with the state budget.

But there's one big line item that doesn't get much attention, even though it's eating California alive: the cost of our debt service.

In the next budget, the state will spend $6.6 billion on debt repayment. According to Moody's Investors Service, California's debt has tripled over the past decade.

We wouldn't have to talk about slashing children's medical insurance and older people's in-home care or closing state parks if we weren't paying off the debt we've accumulated. California is addicted to debt. Not only are we in denial, but we're also not even attempting to face the problem.

Legislators have already approved an $11 billion water bond for the 2012 ballot. A group of California mayors is floating the idea of a $1.7 billion bond issue to save redevelopment agencies, which Gov. Jerry Brown has targeted for elimination. Education lobbyists and stem cell officials are mulling a return to the ballot for more debt. Meanwhile, there's $42 billion in unused debt still hanging around from 2006, when voters approved an infrastructure package that was unaffordable then and even more unaffordable now.

For years, Californians have encouraged this debt binge because we wanted services, and we didn't want to feel the pain of paying for them. Bonds were sold as a tax-free way to get everything we wanted.

It turns out that there are costs to everything. . . .

[bannie]

Send home illegals.

[OneWingedShark]

Hm, Intriguing idea.

[OneWingedShark]

Oh, I have a more interesting way of dealing with *them* .. I’ll freepmail you.

[spokeshave]

"The one that surprised me was $9 BILLION in corrections...and I am confident to say that most of these scumbags are illegals"

Yeah...and a good third of the education budget goes to their spawn.