[Texas Eagle]

In Sacramento, Governor Jerry Brown is planning to close California’s $26.6 billion structural deficit through spending cuts and tax extensions. Opposition has been spirited but less contentious than expected, probably because of the size of the budget hole.

LOL. Yeah. I'm sure the less-than-contentious opposition has nothing to do with the fact that Brown is a RAT, the Assembly is majority RAT, the Senate is majority RAT and the Media is majority RAT.

[Cicero]

Well, if Jerry Brown actually closes the RDAs—I think I’ll wait until I see it happen—then he will have accomplished more than Arnold did in all his time in office.

Not that that’s saying much. I don’t remember. Did Arnold accomplish anything, budget-wise?

[Sherman Logan]

RDAs = crony capitalism.

[Judges Gone Wild]

Eliminating RDAs is a good thing. They eliminate small businesses at the expense of larger ones. Lowering the threshhold for voter approval of tax hikes from 66% to 55% is a violation of the state constiution.

[Wuli]

People complain about the lack of “sufficient” “mass transportation” (like trains), even in places like where I live - in New Jersey and right near Manhattan.

But, the once successful private “capitalist” H&M Railroad that built and operated the first train tunnels from New Jersey to Manhattan, saw its enterprise decline as its ridership went, in stages, from 113 million in 1927 to 26 million in 1958; largely due to government built and subsidized projects building motor vehicle tunnels from New Jersey to New York City.

Now the government owners of the two tunnels and one bridge continuously raise the fees for using them, not due to significant cost increases but to try to encourage drivers NOT to use their tunnels and hoping TO encourage them to go get on the government subsidized trains from New Jersey, largely bankrupted and taken over by the government in earlier decades due to the government’s encouragement of roads and tunnels. See how the government creates a vicious cycle of more need for its services.

The George Washington Bridge alone earns million$ more each year in revenue than the cost of its upkeep and capital requirements; all of which helps The Port Authority (as does revenue from the Lincoln and Holland tunnels) subsidize its “economic development” debt and its money losing operations - like its three airports.

[logician2u]

A summary of states where TIF is used to finance land-grabs by urban renewal agencies shows California leads the pack by an order of magnitude. Every decade or so, even liberal Democrats get a whiff of common sense. Brown did right for once.

Colorado, my adopted state, comes in a distant second in the TIF sweepstakes.

This whole business of taking private property and giving it to politically-connected developers needs to stop or the country will turn into another socialist wasteland.

[NoLibZone]

Nationally it was the CRA that brought down the US and then global economies.