[spald]

your post #10: "The budget defecit in California is $23 billion, not $8 billion. The $8 billion is only for FY 2001. The deficit in California is greater than the defecits in the other 49 states combined. This should be news, but the media are deliberately ignoring it, IMHO."

I spoke to a good friend in the Ohio Engergy Department and he said the entire budget of Ohio is about $45 Billion, not 8 as I previously stated. Still, $23B is a HUGE deficit for CA, about half of Ohio's yearly budget (we have a constitutionally protected balanced budget and the pols have run through alot of the tobacco money, so there's cutback in state agency hiring and finances). Ohio still has a "rainy day fund" of about $600MM, but that could be spent pretty darn quickly.

[snopercod]

California has a "constitutionally protected" balanced budget, too. Furthermore, the California constitution prohibits the state from borrowing more than $300,000 without a 2/3 vote of the legislature AND a vote of the people.

It's pretty obvious that the California Constitution is so much toilet paper these days.