Get the budget done! After we get back from D.C.!
Most of the state's legislative Democrats stayed away from the Democratic National Convention in Denver last August, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stayed away from the GOP counterpart in Minnesota. Because, after all, they were more than two months late on adopting a budget, so it would have been irresponsible to leave the state until that work was done.
So of course, now that the budget they finally passed has fallen billions of dollars out of balance, and they're all back in the exact same position they were in last summer, they're going to have to let the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama go on without them. Right? Ha. They're going to Washington -- Schwarzenegger, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, new Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.
Perhaps there's a point at which a California budget is so late and the gap is so huge that it's no longer a crisis, it's just doom, and there's nothing to be done about it. Or maybe they're hoping to catch the new president's eye during the parade or one of the parties and hit him up for a few billion dollars. Or -- this is my final try -- maybe this is an "off-site" for the three of them, allowing them to get away from Sacramento and brainstorm about the future.
Photo: Ken James, Bloomberg News
This is the price you pay when you give Liberals your checkbook. They take the worlds 8th. largest economy and turn it into a bankrupt mess.
Posted by: James Franklin | January 17, 2009 at 10:24 AM
The Governor, and his staff, seems to ignore the most obvious reason for not raising taxes across the board: working people in California cannot afford to pay more.
Sending the disabled, elderly and poor deep into poverty and homelessness to pay for investment mistakes of the rich is morally and fiscally wrong.
Notice that it is only the”personal income” returns this government will keep, not the business ones.
It looks like the Governor and his lackeys will stoop to anything to get their way with more “development” that will destroy large parts of our state.
In the last three years our lease, we are in the segment of population that was stripped by all and any protection from greedy owners by the California Legislators, rose 30%.
Our health insurance cost is up 500%.
That means that each month we pay out $600 extra outright. Out food budget doubled, yet we buy no luxuries, not even red meat.
We all know how much more we pay for gas. The services, in our case mostly for our cars, also doubled.
The park fees tripled. The community college fees doubled during this time.
Our income remained at 2005 level. There were no raises since.
We were responsible: we did not take a mortgage we could not afford. We had not anticipated that we would become prisoners of a classical scheme where we cannot sell because the incoming tenant is charged rent upward of 50% to what we pay, while the rent control was abandoned by California State to pay off the mortgages of the people who could never afford them. That is not part of the lease we signed.
We simply do not have the extra $300 0r $400 a month that the Governor’s plan would require. Working middle, lower and poor class has nowhere to take an extra $1,000 a month from to cover up the follies of the rich.
It is now necessary to tax luxury vehicles, boats, homes and services that only the rich require. After all, they also use most of the state “invisible” services such as police protection, good roads, street lights, libraries and cultural institutions that were prices out of the reach of the rest of us.
Posted by: Linda Winsh-Bolard | January 17, 2009 at 09:00 AM
I seem to remember they were going to skip the Democratic convention unless a budget was passed. So pass a budget they did - one that they knew would never fly.
I'm doing my part to help move the process along. I'm buying as little as I can that requires payment of sales tax.
Also looking for agressive discounts. Forget rebates - you have to pay tax on the full amount. Even barter if possible. Maybe I'll up my exemptions while I'm at it...
Posted by: TakeFive | January 16, 2009 at 09:04 PM