Legislature's deception on budget backfires

Sacramento Bee ^ | 6/27/11 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

Sir Walter Scott wasn't writing about politics when he sagely observed two centuries ago, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

But he could have been – and his poetry perfectly describes the ironic consequences of two deceptive California ballot measures drafted by Democratic politicians and their allies.

Last week, state Controller John Chiang invoked the intertwined provisions of the two measures, 2004's Proposition 58 and last year's Proposition 25, to cut off salaries and expense payments of state legislators because they failed to pass a balanced budget by the June 15 constitutional deadline.

Proposition 58 was written as a companion to another measure authorizing the state to issue $15 billion in long-term bonds to refinance short-term budget loans. Newly inaugurated Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted a tough spending limit to accompany the bond issue but eventually blinked – a huge political misstep – and allowed Democrats to write a much milder measure.

Its purpose was to make the bonds more palatable to voters, fooling them into believing that it would end deficit spending. But it required only that spending not exceed estimated revenues, without specificity or an enforcement mechanism, and was largely ignored.

[Da Coyote]

Give it up.

CA is toast.

Let the good ones leave and the rest can await the upcoming “big one”.

[FoxPro]

ping

[Edgerunner]

Put some butter on it...it’s toast

[sr4402]

CA is toast.

Just a minute, wait for it - wait for it. Gasp! The Legislature is coming up for a solution - wait for it! You'll never guess!

MORE TAXES! DOH!

[vette6387]

Finally, our State Legislature is being paid exactly what they are worth!!! Personally, I hope we don’t get a budget at all. The RATs have done this in the Congress, so why don’t we just emulate them? They say that Constitutionally, a state can’t go belly up. But when there’s no money in the till, it amounts to the same thing. Plus, when we have no welfare bucks to pass out, and no jobs, the beaners will have to self-deport back to Mexico where their fellow countrymen are waiting with open arms for their return. I am waiting for the Mexican government to say just how unfair it is of us to force their citizens to come home.