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California: The Lindsay Lohan of States
Wall Street Journal ^ | 11-8-10 | ALLYSIA FINLEY

Posted on 11/07/2010 5:20:30 PM PST by chickadee

You've racked up nearly $70 billion in general obligation debt, and that doesn't include your $500 billion unfunded pension liability. Your own analysts predict you'll face a hole of at least $80 billion over the next four years.

Your government's run by a brothel of environmentalists, lawyers, public-sector unions and legislative bums. When they're not taxing or spending, they're creating regulations and commissions like the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology and the California Blueberry Commission. Many businesses would leave if it weren't for your sunny climate.

---> snip <----

You appropriately give your government low marks—28% approval for outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 16% for the legislature—yet you continue to re-elect the politicians who got you into this mess. Not a single incumbent state legislator lost re-election this year, including one Democrat who died a month ago (no joke). What's scarier is that you've just given almost all of the keys to statewide offices to Democrats.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: california; debt; democrats
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To: rellimpank

Holy F____ S_____ !! That’s a lot of government bureaucracies!!


41 posted on 11/07/2010 6:32:18 PM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: dragnet2

More from that article I emailed you:

Paying California Funds it is Owed
Before adding new responsibilities on states to expand Medicaid coverage, the federal government should reimburse the amount that it owes states for past errors with other safety net programs. For example, California has paid for individuals in Medi-Cal while they awaited their Medicare disability determination. This error by the Social Security Administration was acknowledged in 2001. States have never been paid back. The amount owed to California on this issue alone is nearly $700 million.


42 posted on 11/07/2010 6:42:41 PM PST by ransomnote
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To: dragnet2
Who’s going to bail out the 14 trillion in fedgov debt?

Ask The Professor.

43 posted on 11/07/2010 6:52:25 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: dragnet2

Federal Tax Burdens and Expenditures: California is a Donor State
California taxpayers receive less federal funding per dollar of federal taxes paid than the average state. In 2005, California taxpayers received only 78 cents in federal expenditures for every dollar in federal taxes

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/22685.html

Tabular comparisons by state


44 posted on 11/07/2010 6:52:59 PM PST by ransomnote
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To: KTM rider
all totalled, 70% of my pay goes to taxes

SLACKER!!

Work harder! Millions of mooches and parasites are depending on you.

45 posted on 11/07/2010 6:54:07 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: goldstategop

“They’re a mess and no one can fix them.”

Oh yes, the rest of us will be forced to bail them out.


46 posted on 11/07/2010 6:56:33 PM PST by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: coloradan

—can’t claim it as my own—I copied it from another post from several months ago-—


47 posted on 11/07/2010 7:16:37 PM PST by rellimpank (--don't believe anything the MSM tells you about firearms or explosives--NRA Benefactor)
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To: rellimpank

Wow! Bankrupting a state one useless board or commission at a time.


48 posted on 11/07/2010 7:17:58 PM PST by AndyJackson
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To: ransomnote

I will be happy to address your grievance AFTER the Federal Government takes its responsibility to shut the southern border, begin arresting California officials in SF, LA, SD and all throughout the massive Golden State and begin prosecuting for failure to obey Federal laws with respect to granting sanctuary to illegals. The only way to get California back under control is to begin reclaiming it as part of the United States again. Right now it is out of control.

You are correct that on a per capita basis other states may carry a larger debt percentage. This is a misleading stat because California is more populous than most countries in the world and these other states have a minimal base in comparison over which to spread the debt. The reason this state is so overwhelmingly democrat is because there are way, way too many people sucking it dry of benefits.

I think the biggest story over the next 2 years is the collapse of California. We as a people have to decide if we will take the Obama / Pelosi / Boxer / Brown route and ride us all to Hell, or will there be some backbone federally to reclaim this great state. Right now CA and the US is on the expressway to Hell, and we’ve been driving with the accelerator stuck to the floor and the brakes are gone. I pray the Tea Party has the will to be the new brakes.


49 posted on 11/07/2010 7:26:12 PM PST by untwist
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To: TigerClaws

If we just wait long enough, the San Andreas Fault will cast most of this boondoggle into the Pacific-!!


50 posted on 11/07/2010 7:33:46 PM PST by imjimbo (The constitution SHOULD be our "gun permit")
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To: ransomnote
“Tabular comparisons by state”

I would like to take a detailed look at their analysis. Something about it doesn't smell right. It could be that I simply have misconceptions, but I would guess that small population states would be skewed toward receiving more Federal money, simply because there are more military bases there and lots of interstate to be maintained, while high population states would skew the other way.

51 posted on 11/07/2010 7:41:36 PM PST by marktwain
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To: rellimpank
Wow, is anyone living in California NOT employed by the State Government Agency???

Other than those collecting state welfare checks? Actually, I guess that is a form of State employment.

52 posted on 11/07/2010 7:47:02 PM PST by sjmjax
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To: goldstategop

“They’re a mess and no one can fix them.”

Your right about that, but then again, in their eyes your wrong.

See, that “fly-over” country they hate so much? They are depending on using the taxes from that part of the country, yes, the rhubarbs and knuckleheads, mouth breathers, and knuckledraggers.... to bail them out.

Just watch, we’ll get the bill. They’ll be p*ssin in our faces and tellin us its rain.

They are liabilities, at least CA, and should be sold off to Mexico to finance the wall on our border. I’m not sure if we could sell it, so maybe we can trade it for the cheap labor to build the wall.

CA is a white elephant, one we can no longer afford to keep.


53 posted on 11/07/2010 7:47:12 PM PST by esoxmagnum
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To: untwist

“You are correct that on a per capita basis other states may carry a larger debt percentage. This is a misleading stat because California is more populous than most countries in the world and these other states have a minimal base in comparison over which to spread the debt.”

So you are saying that the employed in Calfornia are more productive than the employed in other states per capita? CA is a donor state producing 13% of the Gross State Product and subsidizing other states with Fed tax money even though we have a disproportionate number of ‘floaters’.

“The reason this state is so overwhelmingly democrat is because there are way, way too many people sucking it dry of benefits.”

Yes and those states geographically located next to unprotected borders really deserve their ‘comeuppance’ don’t they??
The FED GOV won’t allow CA to lower it’s high mediCAL/Medicare subsidies to levels a) it can afford and b) those matching other states. If the feds won’t let us do that - I am pretty sure that the poor of other states in the union (you know, states that CA subsidizes) will continue to come to CA for those burdensome benefits as will the stream of immigrants over the CA border (instead of moving through to other states. http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/14080/

Yup - when the flower children of CA had money and had excessive medical subsidies for the poor - I bet they didn’t realize that the feds would never let them lower the rates even as they subsidized other states and sank in their own debt while requirements on other states are lower. So you get flooding over the border to benefits the gov won’t allow you to reduce.


54 posted on 11/07/2010 8:08:57 PM PST by ransomnote
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To: imjimbo

{”If we just wait long enough, the San Andreas Fault will cast most of this boondoggle into the Pacific-!!”

And there goes 13% of all federal taxes that the states supply to the country - taking one of the world’s largest (top 10) economies with it. Gosh - I wonder if that impact on the country you live in would affect you?


55 posted on 11/07/2010 8:13:15 PM PST by ransomnote
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To: rellimpank
—can’t claim it as my own—

Don't worry, I wasn't going to hold you personally responsible for the number of government agencies CA has.

56 posted on 11/07/2010 8:17:27 PM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: untwist
all throughout the massive Golden State and begin prosecuting for failure to obey Federal laws with respect to granting sanctuary to illegals.

You might not have noticed, but the U.S. is a De facto sanctuary country...

57 posted on 11/07/2010 8:36:25 PM PST by dragnet2
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To: chickadee

I don’t know how much Arizona can do about the Mexican border, but I’m pretty sure we could pass building a fence (with armed guards) at the California border...


58 posted on 11/07/2010 8:42:31 PM PST by Mr Rogers (When an ass brays, don't reply)
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To: esoxmagnum
Your worried about CA when they're putting armed guards in all your unemployment offices in Indiana?

Why Is Indiana Putting Armed Security Guards Into 36 Unemployment Offices Across The State?

The Economic Collapse 11-2-2010

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2619530/posts

Did anyone tell ya your fedgov has put you and the next 25 generations of your off-spring, 14 *trillion* in debt?

That smoke your seeing is your home is on fire

59 posted on 11/07/2010 8:43:48 PM PST by dragnet2
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To: ransomnote

My point is that the current fiscal disaster in California has its basis as a federal problem. I understand that illegal floaters soaking the medical, education, law enforcement, legal and prison systems carries a huge weight on the state’s budget gap. Unfunded mandates ultimately bring us to the breaking point.

Until we as a nation demand that the constitution become the law again, California will not recover. The bizarre situation of Meg Whitman’s former maid being openly paraded around as an illegal, with sympathy rather than consequence shows us that the law is dead. The Arizona situation only get the headlines because there are still some leaders in that state who believe in the law, and of course Obama has sicced the Justice Dept. on them. Handing the gigantic California over to the liberals has spread the cancer through all of the most important state in the union.

Given the democrats’ hostility to the law, nothing short of revolution can save CA and ultimately the whole country. It is critical that CA be saved - I just don’t think that allowing the status quo to continue and funding its shortfall (and all the states’ shortfalls) will work. We have to attack the real problem first.


60 posted on 11/07/2010 8:53:54 PM PST by untwist
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