[lurk]

CA had throwing-around money, until this year. They’re going to go through an austerity phase that will be so fun.

[Bernard]

That street money is drying up quickly. Back in June of 2023, Biden Schumer and McCarthy signed a deal that said the national debt would not increase to more than 36 TRILLION before 1/1/2025. That was supposed to be an increase of 4 TRILLION from where it was in June.

According to https://www.usdebtclock.org/ the number is now at 33,937, xxx,xxx.xx (1:03PM Central ).

And we still have 12 months and 9 days to go. At this rate, there will be another debt ceiling crisis coming in August or September of 2024, in the middle of the presidential election campaign. Buy your popcorn now, because 2024 is going to be an interesting year.

[monkeyshine]

The politicians won’t know how to fix it, or have the huevos to do what needs to be done. With term limits, none of them will be accountable when the reckoning comes anyway. They’ve been giving away the farm to every special interest group, including public employees and NGOs they have a built in voting block.

The way out of this, politically, is to pit the productive classes against the government workers. It’s a much better gig - better pay, better benefits, and better retirement plan - being a filing clerk at the DMV than in a small office. Government workers entire raison d’etre is to regulate and poke at the private sector and they generally get better pay and benefits then the line workers in private businesses. When California passed Prop 13 to limit property tax increases it was the people rising up to put limits on the government. That kind of movement has to reoccur.

Anyway the left loves to divide people by all kinds of superficial issues. One way to fight back is to divide them between those who pay taxes and those who get paid by taxes.