Posted on 04/11/2011 4:02:15 PM PDT by dragnet2
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — While Washington averted a government shutdown this week, California Governor Jerry Brown continues with his budget battles.
The governor may feel like he’s in a recurring nightmare these days. Everywhere he turns with a proposed budget fix it gets shot down.
“If we don’t get taxes, if we don’t get cuts, we’re gonna have a hard time balancing the budget,” Brown said. “Many of the Republicans told me, ‘We’re not taxing and we’re not cutting. It’s your job — you’re the governor.’”
But Republicans who show up to protest at many of the governor’s events these days say it’s Brown who’s not living up to his words.
“Fix it, Governor Brown, and I’ll be the first person that would be more than happy to give you money,” said Robert Ledbetter, who was protesting outside one of Brown’s events.
California Republican Party Vice Chair Steven Baric says Brown is not showing he’s much of a leader.
“He promised he would show true leadership and he’s failing to do that. And if he wants to show true leadership let’s have true pension reform,” Baric said.
this weekend, CBS 2/KCAL 9 political reporter Dave Bryan asked Governor Brown about the criticisms:
DB: Many of the Republicans I talk to say that they’re not convinced that you’re serious about pension reform and about cutting the slack in government, cutting the bureaucracy down. They feel that you haven’t put forward, for example, a meaningful pension reform plan because of your connection to the unions.
JB: They have to say that to give cover to their position, which is ‘No’. Their position is ‘No, we’re not going to help you. We’re not going to do anything. Well, that’s unacceptable. I did propose 12 points of pension reform.
The governor tells Dave he believes the country hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War.
This week Brown has been using Civil War metaphors at his public events to describe the deep divisions in California, and the entire country for that matter, preaching with the passion of a born-again that the country is dangerously polarized.
“We are at a point of civil discord, and I would not minimize the risk to our country and to our state. It is not trivial. I’ve been around a long time, I’m a student of history, I’m a student of contemporary politics. We are facing what I would call a ‘regime crisis.’ The legitimacy of our very democratic institutions are in question,” he said.
The nation is certainly polarized, with perhaps 15% up for grabs. The signs were first noticed on election night 2000, when the red state/blue state divide became part of political jargon.
Here is my plan:
** Absolutely get rid of the illegals!
***Allow any child of any age to take the GED or a similar private exam. If they pass, they get an official high school diploma from their local high school. This diploma makes them eligible for the army and college scholarships. To make it extra fluffy. Give them a $2,000 voucher for each year that they finish early. The voucher can be used at any time in their lifetime for post high school education or training.
** Move all sports, theater, arts, and music programs to the county departments of recreation. There should be no requirement whatsoever on grades to participate! Many children stay in school because government has the monopoly on farm team sport's training. Also...These programs create “rah rah” support for the schools in the voting booth. Fewer kids in school mean fewer teachers and fewer buildings to maintain.
** Have qualifying exams for all subjects starting in first grade. If the child masters the subject and passes a government or private exam, the child would be immediately promoted to the next level in the subject(s). This would encourage children to study during the summer and at home. The sooner the child finishes high school and passes the GED the more money he would get for post high school training or education.
** Encourage the expansion of charters, tax credits, and vouchers.
** Encourage the formation of “dame” schools. Allow neighbors to run “homeschools” ( dame schools) in their homes. The zoning and health requirements should be no more onerous than what now exists for day care.
** On the post high school level encourage the use of private qualifying exams. Charles Murray is right! We need fewer kids in college. Even in some of the professions, such as engineering, dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy, nursing some of the lecture material could be placed on-line. the lectures Qualifying exams would test mastery. The course material could even be free if advertising paid the producers of the course. The result would be fewer kids in college and less need for college instructors and professors.
“He’s setting the stage for government to put it’s boot on our necks like was done to the confederates.”
It won’t be as easy as it was back then. The elites in the North had all the manufacturing and all the money. The Progressives wanted that war, not the people.
Uh no he didn't.
I believe that started in the 1950s, in New York City.
uh California is the state we (I) was talking about
Uh, the fact of the matter is it started in NY City and spread like wild fire.
Like this epic illegal invasion from Mexico, it basically started in CA, Texas and the southwest.
It's now nationwide, coast to coast in *every* state.
Democrats own everything in California, especially its FAILURE.
Go ahead, Governor Moonbeam. Do whatever you want. It’s your state you Democrats screwed up. It’s your’s to clean up.
Don’t wait on a Republican to lift a finger. You own the failure. Fix it yourself.
I think someone from Gov. Moonbeam’s office is reading FR. Civil War comparisons have been made on here for years.
What does it say when a Rat acknowledges it?
Start drilling for the damn oil off the California Coast and stop worrying about where the money is coming from, It will be coming from oil revenues.
The governor tells Dave he believes the country hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War.
I don’t go back quite that far, but I see this as much more divided than during the 60s. Much more.
California is finished. Whites have been ethnically cleansed out of California. The WSJ reports that Whites went from 80% in 1960 to 40% today. Latinos are now 38%, poised to become majority.Let us be clear what will happen. Dr. Hanson you will be taxed out of your property. As my family will be out of mine. Latinos don’t own much property. They are poor, having according the US Census Bureau a $16K gap in median household income, and much larger households (twice the size of Whites). Latinos also depend on the Welfare state. Latino girls have kids starting at age 16, routinely, while Whites have kids, mostly only when they can afford them. I have personally observed a Latino family ask for donations from the Charity I do some volunteer work for, in order to fund College expenses for the younger son (the older was in the program I did some work for). They drove up in the latest model Toyota Camry. Its a nicer car than the ten year old one I drive.
Whites are the functional minority in the state of California, and soon the US. We are basically Jews in pre-WWI Germany. Or Dreyfuss era France, whatever you prefer. Entirely predictable, Jerry Brown will follow the people who elected him. And push confiscatory property taxes on ordinary people, to finalize the ethnic cleansing of Whites in California. Then of course heavy taxes on the wealthiest will proceed.
But if I were you, I’d prepare for those confiscatory taxes on your property. You are stuck, unlike a renting Silicon Valley executive, or Hollywood mogul also renting. Therefore you are the easiest tax target. As predictable as the calender — California Latinos want the expansive Welfare state the supports their huge family formation, at the expense of White voters. The numbers have moved their way and its all over but the shouting.
Demography is destiny. California is over, its nothing but Northern Mexico now, and won’t change any time the next century. For Whites, it is time to face the facts and emulate powerful role models: Theodore Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Golda Meir. Yes this is distressing. But this is the cost of diversity. Lets be honest — Whites as a minority can only expect the kind of treatment Jews have historically found in Europe. That is just human nature. California belongs to Mexico now, as surely as Gaza does to Palestinians.
Unpleasant, uncomfortable and decidedly unpalatable truths, to be sure, but truths nonetheless. We don't have to like it. Any of it. But we will have to deal with it. Demography is indeed destiny, - Mark Steyn has also said as much in America Alone. Those of us who live outside what will become urban hell-zones will have some hard, hard choices to make regarding the flood of hungry and desperate refugees, ravagers and killers who will be coming our way once the music stops.
Who will you feed? And at what cost?
Who will you take in? And at what cost?
And who will you kill because you must?
I'm confident those capable of critical thought, are not waiting for them to do much of anything.
Exhibit A would be the U.S. debt, our economy and general state of affairs which have all been declining for years.
1% of those who work pay half of the taxes. I’d guess that is 1.6 million people pay half of the taxes. Would anyone run a business where half of their revenue comes from ~.5% of their “customers?”
Hard to figure how this ends well.
California could be led into a civil war, Americans fighting to retake their state from the Mexican invasion. The problem is that obama would support the mexican nationals.
It won’t end well...Again, this is all perpetrated by government at all levels.
Bush did. Why would Obama be different?
/sarc...
Ohmygosh, Jerry! Where have you been? I have missed you so! I never knew what to think until you came back from Oakland.
Now I can go to bed at night, secure in knowing you will tell me what the problems are that we must deal with, and how to solve them...
Now, about my rash? And, what do we do in a Civil War? Try to be civil?
Unfortunately, government has grow so large and all controlling, it's now uncontrollable .
gobenador moonbeam brown in the 1970’s allowed the public sector unions in California..
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/jerry-browns-california-union-mistake/blog-343285/
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=163253
On a serious note, you are absolutely right. The problem, as I see it, is the following.
Those of us who understand the problem of an out-of-control government are scattered far and wide, like raisin in cheap cake.
I am guessing that the only way out is state by state, and that didn’t work out so well the last time it was tried.
I try to be optimistic, but the little I know of human history over the ages doesn’t comfort me much.
Uh, the fact of the matter is government unions started in NY City and spread like wild fire.
Like this epic illegal invasion from Mexico, it basically started in CA, Texas and the southwest.
It’s now nationwide, coast to coast in *every* state.
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