They could fire every state employee and still be $6 billion in the hole. Fixing this will require major tax increases. Republican legislators will never vote for higher taxes and, as Republican votes are necessary to pass a budget by the necessary 2/3 majority, and, as state budgets must be balanced by law, and, as the people of California would rather die than change any of that,
The people of California will get their wish. They won't have a state government and they'll die.
Every bloody chicken there is will come home to roost at the same time. The voters, both party's legislators (Republican much more than Democratic due to gerrymandering) and governor are quite irresponsible, and we're getting hit by all sorts of external factors at once - faltering economy, unfunded federal mandates (which Republican congressmen love to foist on the states just as much as Democrats), etc.
Regretably I live here. I'm a trial court research attorney and my wife is just starting as a teacher now that our children are leaving for college - she's working part-time while finishing her credential work. We have one son at UC and another at Sonoma State. Our daughter is a high school senior, so we'll have three in college at the same time next fall. This will be brutal.
The conditions for the coming train wreck have been likened to what precedes a "Perfect Storm".
You and I and all of us are standing on the beach together waiting for the tsunami to hit... I hear rumblings already
.. but hang on .. have faith.. I am hopeful that sanity will prevail after the socialist 'Rats fling themselves and many taXpayers off the cliffs of Big Sur like lemmings to a "chosen" fate .. Liebrals live in a fantasy world..
Conservatives .. well .. it IS what it IS, as Clin-Tong would say.. we must deal with the issues at hand not deluding ourselves of the costs both ways.. and what we can afford, not just sell to a populace molded and manipulated by media and educational institutions stealing our youth, their innocence and futures at the same time..
A govt that lives off the largesse of the tax coffers , dies by the same lack of fullness therein.
I will be curious to see what Davis does..
If I was him, I'd resign ;-)
They could fire every state employee and still be $6 billion in the hole. Fixing this will require major tax increases. Raising taxes would result in an exodus of businesses and the middle-class. Remember the NYC experience
The only real way out for California is to terminate the Welfare State. If they made a real effort to assist the INS in deporting all illegal immigrants found on the welfare rolls or in the public schools, the budget would be balanced in a couple of months