"Unexpected!"
Posted on 05/13/2012 7:47:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s budget deficit has swelled to a projected $16 billion — much larger than had been predicted just months ago — and will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday.
The Democratic governor said the shortfall grew from $9.2 billion in January in part because tax collections have not come in as high as expected and the economy isn’t growing as fast as hoped for. The deficit has also risen because lawsuits and federal requirements have blocked billions of dollars in state cuts.
“This means we will have to go much farther and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year,” Brown said in an online video. “But we can’t fill this hole with cuts alone without doing severe damage to our schools. That’s why I’m bypassing the gridlock and asking you, the people of California, to approve a plan that avoids cuts to schools and public safety.”
Brown did not release details of the newly calculated deficit Saturday, but he is expected to lay out a revised spending plan Monday. The new plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 hinges in large part on voters approving higher taxes.
The governor has said those tax increases are needed to help pull the state out of a crippling decade shaped by the collapse of the housing market and recession. Without them, he warned, public schools and colleges, and public safety, will suffer deeper cuts.
Democrats, who control the Legislature, have resisted Brown’s proposed cuts so far this year. Republican lawmakers criticized the majority party for building in overly optimistic tax revenues.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I wonder how much more (taxable) economic activity would have occurred in the State had Uncle Jerry not spent the last year threatening to raise taxes on California’s wealth producers. Businesses and those who start new businesses are fleeing the State out of fear of his new taxes. Each one that leaves takes jobs to some other State. California thus looses taxes that would have been paid by the businesses themselves and the income taxes that would have been paid by their workers.
By the time the state air board, the county board and the “neighborhood” board got done with us, we built the thing in Reno.
: )
IF you send it, they will spend it - and keep coming back for more!
Jerry good buddy, the well has run dry. Can’t get blood out of a turnip. Why don’t you ask Senor Calderon down south of the border to send a donation? After all, most working age Mexicans are already here!
Honestly, the Statehouse in Sacramento is a giant toilet bowl in serious need of a FLUSH!
“the shortfall grew from $9.2 billion in January in part because tax collections have not come in as high as expected and the economy isn’t growing as fast as hoped for.”
Hard to understand why. But they can just fix that with a $16 billion tax increase. No sweat.
Democrats, who control the Legislature cause companies and people to leave the state due to taxes and regulations and the state goes broke.
Make plan B and never vote democrat.
Man, “punishing” Evil California businesses by taxing the hell out of them, and forcing them to comply with feel-good environmental legislation, and passing labor laws to please the Unions until Evil California businesses say “screw you” and move to more business-friendly states seem to cut into the tax revenue they need to pay for insanely generous social programs and Big Government! Who knew?
A company near my old California location, moved out of renting a group of small units, into a nearby larger building that they bought. The California regulators would not allow them to use one of their old machines in the new building. So what they did, was have the inspectors look at the building without that machinery. Then afterward, they moved that machinery into the building. That is the only way to do business in California. In the long run, it has led to the creation of numerous small regional mafias. I kid you not. Was in a restaurant recently that allowed smoking in the greater Los Angeles area. Run by an ethnic mob. State cannot touch them.
Some reality checks here folks:
1. Tax payers have an upper limit of what they are willing to pay for “effective” government. Notice I didn't say “good” or “bad”. Effective governments accomplishes most of what the tax payers want accomplished.
2. Tax payers know that granting any goverenemtn more funds does not make more “effective’. In fact, the more money a government gets the more likely it is to be ineffective.
3. Given any chance at all a tax payer will take active measures to reduce his tax burden. That's why businesses are leaving California.
4. Given any chance at all a tax payer will take passive measures to reduce his tax burden. That's why businesses aren't expanding in California any more.
5. And finally, tax payers are becoming aware that government officials, elected and otherwise, no longer work for the tax payers. They now work for the organizations that give them larger blocks of money for their elections and reelections. This has been a “hidden” rule in politics at all levels dating back to the late 19th Century. How else did the mobs gain control of so many government entities in the 1920’s and drug runners in the 1980’s? What was a hidden rule has become blatant and the tax payers are saying enough is enough.
Problem: California has a $16 billion budget shortfall. (Note to Rio Linda: This means the state spent $16 billion more than it took in.)
Solution from Gov. Moonbeam and Donkey legislators: Raise taxes by $16 billion. Problem solved. Next problem.
But the DNC is still adding new entitlement programs , read vote buys.
Jerry just added a new program called the dream act, a few months ago.
He said we had the Monet for it.
Some one had posted a year by year of the California State budget.
Does any one have this?
Now, can anybody take a wild crazy guess when California began having a structural $20 billion annual budget deficit? Anybody? Bhueller?
Hint: Governor Gray Davis was recalled in 2003.
As you view that chart, note the California budget was $40 billion in 1995.
So from 1995 to 2007 (12 years) the California budget went from $40 billion to $146 billion.
Nobody should be surprised when California goes insolvent.
Correction: $50 billion in 1995 not $40 billion. Point still stands.
Thank you Freedom_Is_Not_Free.
“they need to learn to live within their income.”
History teaches us that vote buying with other peoples money never ends until the reset button is hit.
The others laughing note this:
EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING that happens in California rolls through your state in less than 10 years.
We saw the coming immigration problem and it ramifications in 1997 , as the others all laughed at the Fed overturning our SOS prop 187 try.
More lies from Jerry Brown. First, the $16B is a lie - the real deficit is $25B or more if you count the $$ California owes to the USG. Second, the term “temporary tax hike” is an oxymoron - we all know these will become permanent. Third, and speaking of permanent, the only cuts that make sense are the ones Brown is too chicken to propose: 20% across-the-board reduction in funding and staff for every state agency. Get rid of furlough days and pay the remaining employees properly and tell them to do more with less just as the private sector does.
Years ago my Grandpa gave me a bumper sticker: “If it’s Brown, flush it.” Some wisdom is timeless.
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