My peeps are all in CA. So Moon Beam is going to hit them up for 500 bucks per head.
Keeping it all in perspective, NYC was going broke in 1975.

Tim, that's _Governor_ Moon Beam.

--B.G.--

How long will it take for all the legislators to show up to do their jobs? Days, weeks, months, longer?

This article hits the nail on the head and although it was written in 2009, it may as well have been today.

California
The ungovernable state

I'll gladly throw in $500 for a new state constitution and districts that are not gerrymandered. If the great recession doesn't result in structural changes, I scared to think of what it will actually take.

Current FY 2011-12 budget information is here (but please note: "summary" is 788 pages).

http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/#SummarySchedules

Feel free to review and suggest fixes, as req. Be sure to show your work.

And thanks.

Cheers,

Rick

It would still be the good life here if better managed. How much money is wasted every day?

Why is California (and other localities) so far in the hole?

Is it wasteful, expensive, liberal programs that have been implemented in recent years?

Taxes have been cut for some people, for example proposition 13 that reduces property taxes especially on corporations?

Public employees have for years been paid a little less but their pensions have been a little more, and now we're having to come up with this extra expense?

The cost of medical care keeps costing a bigger share of the budget and it's now beginning to drag down everything? It's worse for public employees because they pay a smaller share?

Is it just the recession has reduced tax receipts?

Or is it a combination of all of these? (except I think the pendulum has been to the right the last thirty years so the first is probably the least true)

Interesting Op-ed in the WSJ comparing California to Greece. And they never touched spending on non-taxpaying illegals. Since I don't live there, I'm not going to make any snarky comments about the legislators on both sides of the aisle.

But the Wall Street Editorial section has always been very partisan - no reason to even look at it

I subscribed to the WSJ for years but stopped after Murdock bought it. Except for the editorial section, it used to be fairly balanced.

California cannot function because of proposition 13, a key part of which requires a 67% majority to pass any tax increases etc. The republican party consistently blocks any effort to actually fix the situation, something Jerry Brown discovered fairly early in his term this time around. The old republican party, that was actually reasonable, and able to engage in dialogue, and compromise, is now not present, and what we have left is an extremist party that refuses to engage in any meaningful compromise whatsoever, with the democrats occupying some weird sort of center right netherworld, which is a bizarre twist is called 'liberal' or 'radical' or whatever by the right, to whom now anything left of pure unregulated corporatism is considered communism. And we've seen where that takes you enough times over the last century...

Obviously with this type of political scenario, only gridlock can occur, since for some perverse reason california continues to elect both parties at roughly the same levels, which gives the republicans veto power over any and all legistlation that could actually fix the problem. Then they step back and blame the democrats, a nice, radically irresponsible way to proceed, one that is absolutely guaranteed to bring the state, and the US, down to the second world status that seems to be the goal of the current system to achieve. And you know how it goes, set the bar low enough, and you'll reach your goals.

Despite cute names like 'moonbeam', Brown is actually a pretty sharp character, and if this situation can be fixed, he might be the one to do it, hard to say, depends on California starting to vote their interests not what some barrage of tv commercials tells them to think. Not a good situation, very sad to watch. What's particularly concerning is that the economic situation is not going to return to 'growth' due to external factors, so really an adjustment that is somewhat rational needs to occur, but it is not occurring, same problem as with the feds, europe, greece, borrowing to pay for the present, with the assumption that growth will resume. Both parties are equally guilty on this stage of denial, but one is extreme and unwilling to dialogue or compromise, and that can and does lead to gridlock.

We need to get rid of the 67% thing in California, as soon as possible, and the other tools being used to bring the US down, like filibustering, then maybe some true campaign finance reform, but the situation looks very bad, to put it mildly. Sadly as things cycle downwards, the typical reaction is reaction, ie, reactionary thinking, and the worse it gets the more extreme the reactions get. The right is already so far right of where it was in the 60s and 70s now that major figures from that era, even Reagan people, Nixon people, Goldwater people, have been writing books warning about the extremism of the new right. As well they should.

Well said Harald

I heard "Governor Moonbeam" on the TV. Very reasonable message. It's up to the voters to choose - either modest tax increase and smaller cuts in spending or bigger cuts - he's willing to do either.

I heard somewhere that a big problem for California is that a lot of manufacturing was exported to Asia

Ah yes. I'm sure it is all the rights fault that Cali is bankrupt.

Yes raise taxes even more in what is already one of the highest taxed states. Might you guys cut spending instead?

You notice industry had been fleeing the state for years due to your policies already.

Keep it up. The rest of us benefit.

I'm fine cutting spending as long as the cuts are coming from the right's massively bloated pet projects, like our prison system. Let's not pretend it's a bunch of hippy liberals driving California over the edge with boondoggle spending.

Again, so despite the fact that the left has controlled the legislature in CA for 40 years with a couple of exceptions, has drawn the redristicting maps until the democratic influenced "public committees" took over just recently, and had half of the recent governors, it is the rigt that is ruining the state?

It's not a matter of left or right. California spends more on education than anything else. What politician will suggest cutting education?

Also, while taxes is are high, California is something like the 8th largest economy in the world, so there still plenty of money to be had here.

Kinda like the new McDonald's value meal. The Obama meal. Order anything you want because the guy behind you is paying.


Just saying

Brad

I don't understand about the Obama meal being ordering anything you want because the guy behind you is paying.

You must be talking about Obama-care

Yeah, seems kind of counterintuitive to me. The democrats have had functional control of the state legislature for decades, yet everything would be in good shape if they just had complete control.

I don't buy that for a second.

What would be higher if that was the case? Taxes, spending and borrowing. That's not a guess or an opinion, that's their platform.

They did it again. Instead of looking for cuts, they found another little way to give themselves another little pay bump.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/24/state/n160354D16.DTL

blame the liberals as always. Keep in mind that we usually have a Repulican Gov. with veto power.

You think we spend a lot on education? Then why does my family have to pay for items for kids to use in my wifes classroom? My wife has not had a cost of living raise in 5 years.....Would you be mad????? Why are teachers getting pink slipped yearly?

Both parties have a lot to answer for. Brown (Moonbeam) has done a pretty fair job and he is trying to right the ship...kinda like Obama.

Keep in mind, when the S**t hit the fan, it was the Republicans and their policies that brought us into The Great Recession. But yes, it is Browns fault and it is Obama's fault.

Our state is not bringing in the money that it did during the boon years. Programs have been cut so much that their really is not a whole lot left to be cut. Raising taxes a little bit will get us out of this mess. The only way Brown could get his plan to work was to bring it to the voters. The Republicans have stood in the way of raising taxes.


THEY DON'T LISTEN TO NO ONE

Edited by kennyhel77 on 05/27/2012 09:45:18 MDT.