Post by The Big Dog on Dec 19, 2008 12:59:15 GMT -5
Arnold apparently is going to veto. It seems that even he is not willing to put up with the bad press this kind of move is generating here and about.
This state is teetering on the edge of open revolt over all this. The feeling of it is palpable in the rural areas especially. The Democrats who control Sacramento and who feed at the trough of the permanent bureaucracy and the public employee unions should be slowly coming around to the notion that they are going to have to man up, put on their big boy pants, and actually do some pretty drastic spending cuts if there is any hope of the state getting anywhere close to solvency. That those same Democrats, such as Gil Cedillo who is quoted in the link, are still posturing rather than acting yet still keep getting re-elected, says a lot for just how thoroughly assed up the decades of jerrymandering have made things.
The state has no credit worthiness. It can not borrow. No one wants the state's bonds. Yet none of that stopped the Democrat controlled Legislature from starting the fiscal year knowingly having larded $11B of deficit spending into the budget, which the governor quite foolishly signed. Since then the economy has shifted, the housing market is in free fall and revenues to the state are dropping even faster. $11B has morphed into $18B and it's still climbing. Right now it looks like the sky may not even be the limit.
It's time for California's state government to face fact... all the waste, the abuse, the double and triple dipping of retired workers and retired elected officials, the phoney baloney programs that all require "administration", has all got to end.. California's state government must accept it, deal with the monster they've created responsibly, and move forward smartly into a new age of fiscal sanity.
Or it's over. Plain and simple. And no amount of CHP officers and State Park Rangers will keep the people from peacefully and directly redressing their greivances with the Legislature.
[/url]
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Dec. 19, 2008 | Page 3A
Democratic legislators attempted Thursday to take a big bite out of the state's budget deficit by passing a complex, $18 billion mélange of legally uncertain spending cuts and new taxes, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly doused it with the icy water of a veto threat.
Schwarzenegger labeled portions of the 16-bill package as "bogus," but the parts he rejected related more to so-called "economic stimulus" than its budget-related provisions. He indicated that he could accept a revised version, even though Republican legislators and anti-tax groups denounced it as an unconstitutional money grab.
However, legislative leaders said they don't intend to resume the budget battle until January, which would give lawmakers very little time to deal with the fiscal meltdown that state officials say is looming in February when the state runs out of cash to pay its bills.
<< snipped >>
"Today we end the tyranny of the minority," Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, declared as the Senate began its debate.
Conversely, if the scheme eventually wins Schwarzenegger's approval but fails the judicial test, it would strengthen Republicans' hand in the perpetual stalemate over taxes and spending cuts. Democrats then could be forced to cave in to GOP demands not only for deeper spending cuts but contentious changes in business regulations that Democrats and their allies have shunned.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, progenitor of the tax-fee swap plan that would generate $9.3 billion in new revenue, cites the blessing of the Legislature's lawyer, as long as the taxes being raised and lowered are equal. But the legislative counsel's legal advice is notoriously compliant with legislative preferences, and it's a novel legal theory that's never been tested in the courts.
Finally, even were the scheme to win the governor's approval and clear the courts, the state would still face a deficit of more than $20 billion that would have to be addressed in 2009. [/quote]
This state is teetering on the edge of open revolt over all this. The feeling of it is palpable in the rural areas especially. The Democrats who control Sacramento and who feed at the trough of the permanent bureaucracy and the public employee unions should be slowly coming around to the notion that they are going to have to man up, put on their big boy pants, and actually do some pretty drastic spending cuts if there is any hope of the state getting anywhere close to solvency. That those same Democrats, such as Gil Cedillo who is quoted in the link, are still posturing rather than acting yet still keep getting re-elected, says a lot for just how thoroughly assed up the decades of jerrymandering have made things.
The state has no credit worthiness. It can not borrow. No one wants the state's bonds. Yet none of that stopped the Democrat controlled Legislature from starting the fiscal year knowingly having larded $11B of deficit spending into the budget, which the governor quite foolishly signed. Since then the economy has shifted, the housing market is in free fall and revenues to the state are dropping even faster. $11B has morphed into $18B and it's still climbing. Right now it looks like the sky may not even be the limit.
It's time for California's state government to face fact... all the waste, the abuse, the double and triple dipping of retired workers and retired elected officials, the phoney baloney programs that all require "administration", has all got to end.. California's state government must accept it, deal with the monster they've created responsibly, and move forward smartly into a new age of fiscal sanity.
Or it's over. Plain and simple. And no amount of CHP officers and State Park Rangers will keep the people from peacefully and directly redressing their greivances with the Legislature.
[/url]
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Dec. 19, 2008 | Page 3A
Democratic legislators attempted Thursday to take a big bite out of the state's budget deficit by passing a complex, $18 billion mélange of legally uncertain spending cuts and new taxes, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly doused it with the icy water of a veto threat.
Schwarzenegger labeled portions of the 16-bill package as "bogus," but the parts he rejected related more to so-called "economic stimulus" than its budget-related provisions. He indicated that he could accept a revised version, even though Republican legislators and anti-tax groups denounced it as an unconstitutional money grab.
However, legislative leaders said they don't intend to resume the budget battle until January, which would give lawmakers very little time to deal with the fiscal meltdown that state officials say is looming in February when the state runs out of cash to pay its bills.
<< snipped >>
"Today we end the tyranny of the minority," Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, declared as the Senate began its debate.
Conversely, if the scheme eventually wins Schwarzenegger's approval but fails the judicial test, it would strengthen Republicans' hand in the perpetual stalemate over taxes and spending cuts. Democrats then could be forced to cave in to GOP demands not only for deeper spending cuts but contentious changes in business regulations that Democrats and their allies have shunned.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, progenitor of the tax-fee swap plan that would generate $9.3 billion in new revenue, cites the blessing of the Legislature's lawyer, as long as the taxes being raised and lowered are equal. But the legislative counsel's legal advice is notoriously compliant with legislative preferences, and it's a novel legal theory that's never been tested in the courts.
Finally, even were the scheme to win the governor's approval and clear the courts, the state would still face a deficit of more than $20 billion that would have to be addressed in 2009. [/quote]
