“People think we’re becoming a third world country,” says Arnella Sims, a Los Angeles County court reporter. “We are on the verge of system failure,” warns the executive director of the California Budget Project.
“California’s fiscal hole is now so large,” The Globe and Mail further adds, “that the state would have to liberate 168,000 prison inmates and permanently shutter 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1… Mass layoffs, slashed health and welfare services, closed parks, crumbling superhighways and ever-larger public school class sizes are all part of the new normal.”
In an effort to fight back the tide, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – the “governator” – took a bold step last week, ordering 200,000 state workers to take a temporary pay reduction to $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage. The state comptroller balked.
It would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic. This is the kind of stuff that happens when you run out of money, courtesy of spending what you don’t have for years or even decades at a time. http://www.defundanddisobey.com/default/chapter-66-for-states-facing-bankruptcy
or, if you prefer,
Victor Davis Hanson: Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance — welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley. “Two Californias” http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson121610.html
Green suits you. You should wear it more often.