Are people still drinking this stuff?
Posted on 12/27/2004 6:05:02 PM PST by churchillbuff
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will decide what his budget will contain. But if he follows the lead of his new finance director, Tom Campbell, it should be a more straightforward document than he and other governors have presented in the past.[snip]
... ``This will be an honest budget. This will be a budget that will withstand the careful scrutiny of anyone looking for what sometimes has been called trickery.'' ...Campbell specifically ruled out a number of the tricks that have been used in the past. ...[snip]He will give up on the idea of borrowing almost a billion dollars, by issuing bonds, to make the state's payment to the employee pension fund. ``Because the pension obligation bonds are the subject of the Pacific Legal Foundation's lawsuit . . . I did not consider it wise, safe, in presenting a realistic financial picture, to include the ability to sell them.''
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
OK, I voted for Arnold and wish him well....but isn't this a year late?
Cute, why not just call the guy a liar outright.
First Arnold had to stop the bleeding, and he did, now he has to work on long term solutions.
Oh, is that why Donna Arduin left?
Give me ONE example of substantive fiscal restraint (greater than $1 billion) on the part of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Give Arnold a Republican legislature.
You are blaming him for things over which the Dem Legislature has control, not Arnold.
Does the governor of California have a line-item veto?
Ping...
There has not been ONE line item veto of any substance from governor Schwarzenegger.
You stated: First Arnold had to stop the bleeding, and he did, now he has to work on long term solutions.
Your statement means that you believe Arnold has stopped the bleeding. Either explain how he has done that or recant.
Some Sacramento politicians, including Gov. Schwarzenegger, have fessed up to California's addiction to "credit card" style borrowing. But do they have the will to actually do something about it? The latest figures on the state's debt service are staggering. California will soon be forced to pay $5.5 billon a year to cover its debts, more than it spends to fund the entire University of California system. In the past four years, the state has spent between $2.1 billion and $2.8 billion on debt service. By 2010 that number is expected to reach $6.8 billion.
This is an appalling indictment of Sacrament's financial mismanagement.
Yes, voters play a role in state borrowing every time they approved initiative bonds. But the root of the problem is Sacramento's spending problems: When the state fails to budget for public works projects, voters feel obligated to step in. If California lawmakers had been more focused on transportation, say, than boosting pensions for prison guards, they could have kept the debt in check.
Instead they took the easy way out, figuring the next generation could deal with their problems.
Stronger political leaders, in the face of mounting debts and deficits, would first make existing governmental services as efficient and streamlined as possible. Then, when the waste had been cut, and critical infrastructure investments allocated, present the public with two choices either face cuts in services or pay more taxes to maintain them.
Instead Sacramento has delivered the worst of all worlds, continuing wasteful spending and self-dealing while failing to invest in public works infrastructure investments. The public has then been confronted with an unfair choice, to borrow or face the prospect that California's freeways, hospitals, parks, schools and water systems will fall into disrepair and neglect.
Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature have to come to grips with the state's imbalance between spending and revenue. Piling debt on top of debt is no solution, and it's getting more dangerous by the day.
Besides, since he's made a preserve out of the entire Sierra-Nevada mountain range down to 100 feet elevation, the problem should just about be over... Don'tcha think?
What a convenient cop-out!!!
Stop the bleeding? Give me a break!
He borrowed $15 billion to cover an $8 billion dollar deficit, using the remainder to continue out of control spending. That combined with internal borrowing and deferrals is bringing us to a full blown hemorrage. He has done nothing to curb spending; his budget this year is still structurally out of balance. So much for "not spending more money than you have."
Arnold's campaign promises = campaign lies. When are you going to be honest and admit it?
And mega billion dollar borrowing was all the legislatures idea, right? NOT!
Remember, I was rather dismayed about a couple of Arnold's recent decisions regarding the environmental idiocies, but looking at it overall, he still looks infinitely better than Davis or Bustamante. Shudder at the thought of those two.
Hmmm... no reply. Go figure.
The root of the problem is he backed down last year from insisting on a tough spending limit and gave the Democrats what they wanted so he could get through this year. It proved to be a disastrous choice. As Ann Coulter has written, it ought to dawn on Republicans not to make concessions on core principles just to get along with the other party. And now we're starting from scratch in California whereas a REAL spending limit would have forced the State Legislature to start making cuts today. That would have been the responsible thing to do. Call it a missed opportunity to clean house in Sacramento.
I agree with most everything you wrote. I would suggest, however, that instead of "starting from scratch", we are actually much further under water than we were due to a year's worth of continued out-of-control spending, mega-bond issuance, the Sierra land grab, the stem-cell boondoggle, appointment of many leftists to important state positions, etc., etc., etc.
We have declined considerably in the last year on most all fronts, therefore, corrective actions will be much tougher than they would have been a year ago.
A glutton for embarrasment.
It has to pay well.
You think anyone is listening?
There is little hope that Kalifornia can avoid bankruptcy. And there is some chance that the Demoncrats will be able to convince voters that Arnold caused it by failing to raise taxes.
You sound like a real pessimist
Do you see reasons for optimism? Please predict the total budget, the revenue, and the resulting budget shortfall for this year and the following four years in Kalifornia.
Arnold started with about a $12 billion dollar imbalance about which he could do little. He has probably added about $8 billion more for this year. What do you predict will be the increase in Kalifornia debt during Arnold's term? Even Davis could have done this well with the economic recovery we are having.
Billions for stem cell research this year will be followed by billions for global warming "research" next year; or some other undeserving boondoggle.
Many Americans and a majority of Kalifornians are regular drinkers of the collectivist kool-aid. One of the recently passed initiatives will tax people making over a million dollars in order to expand mental health services.
Does that strike you as the most pressing need of a state running $10 billion per year deficits? I can imagine nothing short of a cash-flow crisis followed by court-mandated spending controls to address the problem.
LOL!
It's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when' Kalifornia goes belly up. And the sooner the better, because only after Kalifornia hits "rock bottom" and admits publicly and loudly that it is a hopeless liberal drunk can real recovery begin. That's the First Step.
He didn't even really help Bill Jones, a person who, like you, fell hard for Arnold and went all the way for him!
Now he's appointing D's to high positions, as if he didn't even know any R's to appoint!
Even you have to admit there's something terribly wrong with this picture!!! The CA Republican party hasn't really been helped by this enormously popular dude who turn from body building to trying his hand at politics.
Even Pete Wilson was more effective at helping the party pick up seats here and there, than this shallow little man!!!
As a matter of fact, yes, I do! They're doing it very quietly. They're being very quiet because they're praying hard that the level of embarrassment and Democrat damage isn't something the media will start picking up on, to ruin any chance of Arnold's success and venge the unprecedented embarrasment brought on them, by Gray Davis!!!
Arnold start out as a self-styled populist, which gave him some legitimacy. But he's destroyed that by whoring after the "Special Interests" in a manner that eclipses Gray Davis to the nth degree.
He's just riding this thing into the ground, trying to see how far it will take him. It's not looking good anymore and this is making those quiet souls who ARE listening, more and more anxiety filled, to say the least!!!
Because, when he goes down, it ain't gonna be pretty for the Party, for many years to come!!!
Of a twelve step process, one day at a time. "Easy Does It," as the bumpersticker says.
The second step will be the CA Repub Party unhooking their wagon from the "star" it's hooked on.
Are people still drinking this stuff?
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