Posted on 07/19/2009 8:40:16 AM PDT by SmithL
The budget mess in Sacramento was inevitable: Term limits, gerrymandered safe districts and officials' willingness to expand programs or cut taxes with no regard for the consequences have all played a role in the $26.3 billion deficit.
But perhaps the biggest problem is the willingness of our elected leaders, from the governor on down, to cook the books to get their way.
Whether it's education, prisons or tax cuts, you need to start being honest about the numbers. The problem is, no one wants to say what this program increase is really going to cost, or how much money this tax cut will cost today, tomorrow and years down the line.
Democrats tend to undercount the costs associated with their programs and overcount how much money will come in to pay for them. They also tend to spend all the money on workers, even before they build the building where they are going to work.
Republicans, on the other hand, refuse to accept responsibility for the cuts to vital programs that spring from their tax reductions. And they push for things like more prisons without ever accepting the responsibility for having to run them.
On top of that, you have a governor who got the whole mess going by chopping the vehicle license fee the day he took office.
Tell me, how do you stop collecting billions of dollars in license fees if you don't simultaneously reduce the cost of government?
Could you do that with your checkbook?
And that's another problem. Thanks to term limits, by the time the check is due, whoever wrote it is long gone, leaving someone else to try to cover it.
It's as if every team in the NFL based its spending on the assumption it was going to win the Super Bowl.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
But perhaps the biggest problem is the willingness of our elected leaders, from the governor on down, to cook the books to get their way.Even when Republicans hold the line on tax increases, they are still willing to use smoke & mirrors to make it appear that the budget is in balance.
Let's see, you spend more than you make for forty years. OK, that's bad.
Willie Brown is the coolest liberal of all time.
It’s extortion by government to make citizens pay in the face of chaos they create by overspending. Notice they never offer to stop these wasteful programs or cut spending.
Republicans fight for tax cuts and strong defense.
Democrats fight for new welfare programs and increased spending.
The universe is in harmony.
At least until it all melts down.
The state should have seen Willie coming!
Right Willie. Term limits and tax cuts...they sure are deadly! At least they are deadly to leftists like you and those who run Kalifornia.
Willie’s RAT buddies created the disaster that is CA.
“Tell me, how do you stop collecting billions of dollars in license fees if you don’t simultaneously reduce the cost of government?”
Is this guy kidding me? How are Republicans going to cut the cost of government in California? Short of armed insurrection, the Dem libs have the state locked up.
They saw it coming, they just ignored it.
“how much money this tax cut will cost today, tomorrow and years down the line.”
Herein lies the problem. The politicos consider aii monies as theirs and any they alow you to keep an expense.
Are you kiddin' me?
Yeah, “tell ‘em Willie Boy is here!”
Wasn’t Willie Brown Speaker of the California State Assembly for many, many years while all this was brewing? Isn’t he responsible for a great deal of the problem?
As Archie Bunker once said “Boy, that’s black calling the kettle pot.”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle Black.
Actually, Willie, the state DID see the buget mess coming . . . . . they just didn’t care. It was too important to buy more votes than demonstrate any public responsibility.
California, like ALL of the liberal-driven states that are in a similar finacial mess, is the poster child for irresponsible liberal policies. In the long run, folks, elections have consequences. Our children and grandchildren will never be able to have the kinds of opportunities that previous generations have enjoyed in this country, because too much of their earnings will be confiscated by the government to pay for unsustainable liberal policies!!
THE COLLECTOR---Vito's first cousin (flying in from South Jersey).
"Lessee, where'd I put dem cement overshoes."
========================================
"Ach der lieber, mama mia. Dat sobanagun Veetoe's gonna collect
Kaleefirneeah's IOU's? Duz he knowh hez puttin a Kennedee in dainjah?
Ai getda nasheenul sumpatty ven anudder Kennedee goz kaputz, ifh Mariah
vallz offh dah skee lifvt at hour Zun Falley esthate."
" Chonny and Wooty, ai gotda vunny veeling dah Reepublucan Potty tinks
RINOS ass pure crapola. Ai hear RINOS kin getz jops ass Val-Mart greetahs,
Home Depoht paihnt mixahs, McD's ketchop pumpahs, undt vaitahs at Ved Lopstah."
From Willie Brown, who ran the House in CA like a Gestapo — that Willie Brown? That Willie Brown who has the nerve to accuse others of being crooked and cooking the book?
Excuse me while I sit here and laugh. There is an old saying about the pot calling the kettle ... that I won’t post in its entirety because I don’t want me or this site to be called racist but it sure does fit in this instance!
The State? Wouldn’t that be Willie Brown?
Everyone saw this coming. They just did not care. They figured that the poor people in Mississippi and Alabama would bail them out by paying higher taxes subsidize their spendthrift ways.
Old Willie was indistinguishable from nutty Nancy when he ruled the California legislature. Since he left politics, he’s gotten sane.
Frankly, the budget was balanced back then.
Willie is always a good read. Although an unabashed liberal, he understands California politics.
The size and spending of California's government has grown 40% in the last ten years, far outstripping increases in population and inflation. Any Republican "cuts" have been as a drop in the ocean.
The Democrats have long been in complete control of California, a couple more decades of their leadership will bring the plights of Detroit and Mexico to the whole state of California.
Willie Brown is the coolest liberal of all time.
“Always tell the truth unless it’s politically expedient to do otherwise.” Willie Brown
What a self-aggrandizing sack of Joe Biden.
Self-righteous jackarse. It all started with the Demonrats under Gray Davis down in their takeover. Just another example of the disaster of that party when given total power like they are going to do nationally! And now nothing but a Kennedy stooge Demonrat in Republican clothing to show what a girly man he is! That state can drop off into the ocean and take the liberalism it gives this country with it. Willie Brown’s part of the philosophy which brought it on while having the audacity to write this drivel. Kalifornia should be a political issue against Demonrats and their policies and warning enough for why we didn’t need it nationally, but people are now learning the hard way, aren’t they?!
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