California only hours away from total ruin

Drudge ^ | 6/30/03

[meandog]

LOS ANGELES -- Any day now, community colleges here may begin telling faculty members that they cannot be paid and students that summer classes are canceled.

Nursing homes are losing so much state aid that many soon may have to shut down or limit their services, a prospect that has elderly residents confused and frightened.

As many as 30,000 government workers who had been expecting pay raises in the fall are instead receiving formal notices warning that they could lose their jobs by then, because the state is broke.

This is life in California, on the brink of a fiscal disaster.

The nation's most populous state, home to one of the world's largest economies, has been staring in disbelief at the same dire predicament for months: a $38 billion deficit, the largest shortfall in its history and an extreme example of the budget woes afflicting many states. But now it has only hours left to solve the problem.

[Grampa Dave]

Actually, after reading the cartoon a little closer. It shows BB working for the Rat controlled Kali legislature.

They are in total denial as they continue to push bills to tax us more and to raise taxes to pay for the perverts who vote for them.

[wku man]

Garry Owen and Toujours Pret to you, too, sir.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[John Jorsett]

The state has to go into this condition, and then Wall Street hopefully will take over the budget process.

I'm hoping that DOESN'T happen. Bankers don't know squat about decent fiscal policy. Every time the IMF 'reforms' an economy (typically by raising taxes), it gets demonstrably worse. I say let the state declare bankruptcy, which will give the receiver an opening to renegotiate the horrific labor agreements (and maybe even those long-term energy contracts) that Davis got us into.

[sweetliberty]

Yeah, but it made the point, the point being that California is in a mess no matter what angle you approach it from.

[Grampa Dave]

These are not political IMF bankers. They are bottome line bean counters who care less about spin and politics.

It will be a good thing. It will expose the fat and graft that is miles high in the Kali budgets.

[John Jorsett]

California sent the federal government $58 billion more than it recieved in federal outlays in 2001.

Some states are always going to wind up short. If the states send X dollars to Washington, and Washington itself consumes some fraction of that just for its own uses (foreign aid, military, running the bureaucracy, etc.), then even an equitable distribution means each state would only get a portion of its tax money 'back'. The answer is to reduce the amount going to Washington in the first place. I'm not holding my breath until that happens.

[monkeyshine]

You got that right. And what is worse, is that California controls 11% of the house of representatives, but it's as if our reps have no idea why the congress is set up the way it is. They go to represent their party, not our state! They have enough power to stop the disproportionate spending, to force budget bills to give California its fair share, BUT THEY DON'T EVEN TRY!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Great cartoon!

Sorry about the extra pings if you have already seen this.!

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[John Jorsett]

These are not political IMF bankers. They are bottome line bean counters who care less about spin and politics.

They care about getting paid back and won't necessarily care how that happens, meaning the path of least resistance. In California, that's taxes, not reductions in spending or increased efficiency. I don't think they're actively malevolent as some do, but I don't trust them to have our best interests in mind when they're 'fixing' things.

[dufekin]

http://vote2000.ss.ca.gov/Returns/pres/mapComp.htm

The most conservative county in Claifornia appears to be Modoc (72% Bush, just 53% Dole in '96 though). San Bernadino went Clinton in 1996 (44%) and Bush in 2000 (49%), so I'd call it "very competitive." Orange went Bush (56%) and Dole (51%)--not exactly a landslide. Santa Barbara is actually VERY competitive (Gore--but by only 47-46-7). Ventura is a Bush county--by only 48-47-5. Los Angeles did go Gore, 64-32-4, but if San Diego (Bush, 50-46-4) were as conservative as LA were liberal, we'd be in business. I'd say this "state" of South California is only modestly liberal. PS...I would have added the "Inland Empire" to South California if it weren't so competitive. But it really won't give us a Republican state in LA, so I didn't bother.

[Grampa Dave]

They know how to cut the fat out of a budget.

Also, if Wall Street does makes the cuts, we can't be blamed for it. We can say that the tax and spend rats brought it on themselves. They were unable to produce a real budget with real cuts. So Wall Street had to step in.

[John Jorsett]

And just what the he!! is the state of California supposed to do about enforcing U.S. (i.e. federal) immigration laws?

California (where I live, by the way) could start by letting cops notify the INS when they stop somebody who turns out to be an illegal. Many (if not most) major CA cities now have a policy against that. And they can stop the recognition of the Matricula Consular cards as valid ID. They can also head off the bill to issue driver's licenses to illegals, which is making its way thru the legislature and will probably be signed by Davis. If the state insists on making things easier for illegals and then complains about how the schools are overcrowded and health services have to be curtailed, why should anybody listen?

[Merdoug]

I'm a conservative,...not a Bushbot. :)

[snopercod]

Look at the good side. California has reached the final stage of communism: the withering away of the state.

[Merdoug]

To be more specific, I'm an American first. Many businesses care more about profits than they do the future of the USA. Do you want to live in a third world country? That's where we're going. I guess it doesn't bother the white-collar executives if America speaks Spanish in a few more years, but for this poor working stiff, I will miss the America that my parents and I grew up in. I think too many conservatives think that all liberals are evil and all conservatives are good. Not all businesses love America: they love that green stuff more. Like it or not, Bush loves Mexican workers coming here and he is doing NOTHING to stop it. That's what I call putting business interests before America. At least, the old America. With our crumbling morality, monsterous teenagers, and liberal agenda bent on destroying our Country, I'm going to be a lost soul before too long. :( Sorry if I offended anyone.

[xusafflyer]

We lived in Riverside County and I grew up in San Bernardino county (now living in Indiana). Although the counties are "currently" Republican, they won't stay that way for long.

State Rep Negrette-McCloud is from Chino
Rep Neil Soto is from Pomona, Chino, Ontario

The Hispanics are moving into the Inland Empire in LARGE numbers and they want power. In Chino for instance, the local Catholic bishop is insisting that the city be districted (instead of city vote for Mayor/Council) and the Mexican's want at least one district. They don't like the fact that someone sympathetic to their cause can't be elected by the entire city.

Good luck everyone still in the trenches of California.

[Smogger]

Not being from California, I'll leave that discussion to someone who is. But I do know that Prop 187 passed something like 60-40, and it is believed would pass by the same margin again today. If a Republican came along and campaigned on that issue, it's my opinion he'd most likely win as Wilson did.

Wrong. Pete Wilson was a lame duck at the time he campaigned for Prop 187. It would have passed whether he campaigned for it or not. All it did was associate the Republican party with a divisive issue, and allow state Democrats to use fear to seperate Mexicans in this state from their vote.

Historically the party has never received more than 25 to 35% of the hispanic vote nationwide, and unless Republicans become democrat clones and promise to give away the store, they never will.

Wrong again. There is no reason Republicans can't expand their percentage of the Hispanic vote, and we don't have to give away the store to do it. There are plenty of reasons, though, that we can lose that percentage and see it shrink down to about the 10% or so of blacks that vote Republican; hubris, arrogance, and xenophobia chief among them.

[Smogger]

I believe the ever popular Bill Simon carried the Inland Empire (San Bernadino/Riverside Countied) too in 2002. So I say it's gone Republican the last two "major" elections.

[snopercod]

Republican San Luis Obispo should be in with the CENTRAL state. It would give them a sea port (Avila Beach).

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Wrong. Pete Wilson was a lame duck at the time he campaigned for Prop 187.

If I remember correctly, Wilson was pretty far down in the polls until he jumped on the 187 bandwagon. His ultimate victory was about the same margin as 187. So no I don't think I'm wrong. That issue won the election for him, and it would for a Republican today, if they showed some spine and stopped allowing themselves to be duped by the liberal media into thinking otherwise.

Wrong again. There is no reason Republicans can't expand their percentage of the Hispanic vote, and we don't have to give away the store to do it.

And how do you propose they do this, by preaching capital gains tax cuts? Newly arrived poor immigrants are interested in the programs that will help them, that's it. Maybe after several generations they'll become a little more conservative, and in fact the 25 to 35% of hispanics which Republicans have traditionally gotten may be from that pool. But as long as they continue to pour in by the millions, uneducated and broke, they're voting for democrats.