CA: The $35 billion question

SJ Mercury News ^ | 01/05/03 | Editorial Board

[NormsRevenge]

LET'S agree that teaching and nursing are vital professions and that putting the disabled to work is a noble endeavor.

Let's also agree that whatever Gov. Gray Davis proposes along those lines in his inaugural speech Monday and his state of the state speech Wednesday, won't have much of anything to do with what he faces at the end of the week.

[EggsAckley]

I would say that the $35 billion question is:

WHERE DID IT GO ?

[Fitzcarraldo]

Entering office four years ago, Davis inherited budget riches. Now his task, much less pleasant and much more enduring if he succeeds, is to lift the burden of gyrating budgets from future governors.

Why don't they just report Davis is a colossial failure has no chance of repairing the budget? What we read here can be translated: "he will try, so give him credit now."

[Fitzcarraldo]

Davis sacked the California budget surplus by paying out at least $20 billion to the spot energy market. That is only the tip of the iceberg. He's hiring the chief of that energy "policy" to solve the current budget. Sounds like the fox is in the henhouse.

[Republic of Texas]

The problem is, they just haven't tried socialism the RIGHT way yet. Give us ten or twnty more chances, they say, we'll get it right this time!

SOCIALISM ALWAYS FAILS.

[NormsRevenge]

Would it be mean to add the squandered 12 billion to the 35 billion deficit to make a Grant Total (if you believe any of these numbers) of 47 billion plus?

This isn't gross incompetence. It is criminal.

[Thud]

I think we should start worrying about an attempt to create a value-added tax in California.

[Republic of Texas]

Hey, one more tax won't hurt Kalifornia, will it? It is for the (illegal) children!

[Torie]

What the editorial fails to ask is just why when the state gets windfall revenues from a capital gains recognition boom that it then spends, when the windfall ends revenues should in part be made up with higher taxes. That would seeem to be a formula for an ever higher tax burden as spending "floors" permanently ratchet up during boom times. That even in California is not sustainable, since it must compete with other states with lower tax burdens.

The clever liberal would try to get out of that box by having the feds do more of the spending, or shipping money to the states, in order to keep spending high while avoiding the interstate competitive conundrum. And that of course is the exact policy that is being avidly pursued now by the usual suspects. I have heard it from the mouths of the newly elected Democrat governors of Michigan and Pennsylvania, and now from Davis. And Bush appears to be on board, at least in part, with this "risky scheme."

[Parley Baer]

As far as I'am concerned the liberal rags such as the sj mercury news, la times, san francisco chronical et al are part and parcel to the problem. They failed big time to keep the voters informed about what was really going on in Sacramento. They turned out the be the mouth piece for the grey davis. Looks like the cover up continues. Parley

[NormsRevenge]

The liebral fish wraps (I wouldn't call them newspapers) in this state are marching lock step doing the CYA waltz.

[jwalsh07]

It's not unique to California. Ct was also the benefactor of the cap gains bubble and spent like a drunken sailor. Now it is time to raise taxes to make up for the budget shortfalls and whine about the feds doing more.

The cycle never ends. Spending increases in good times and then to appear moderate the solution is to close the gap with spending cuts and tax increases equally.

Of course the result is a continous positive slope with the x axis representing time and the y-axis representing spending.

I'm at wit's end. State employees are by far the biggest expense item in the budget. They can look forward to golden early retirement and the rest of us can look forward to golden showers.

Somehow the cycle needs to be broken. I have no idea how that will ever happen.

[NormsRevenge]

Think "Boston Tea Party" .. I hear ya. We're in a death spiral with the "state" euthanizing the common folks slowly but surely..

[SteveH]

Of course the result is a continous positive slope with the x axis representing time and the y-axis representing spending.

Or even a higher-order polynomial curve, at least in the portions of the domain in which the Democrats are in total charge of the state...

[snopercod]

WHERE DID IT GO ?

Pension increases, mostly.

[snopercod]

flag request

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks, been watching the ball game. Good games today!

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[dennisw]

Republicans should just sit on their hands and let Davis and his crew of liberal idiots tackle this problem. RATS control the governorship, the legislature, judiciary, the universities, the educational establishment.

They wanted a one party communist state and now they have one.

[NormsRevenge]

Is it just me or is the NFL full of a bunch of young renegade idiot players these days? The Giants players, Shockey or Williams did no one any favors by behaving as they did. And TO (Tyrannical Owens) delivered as you knew he would by being involved in not one but two bizarre late game antics. I was hoping for a tie and no one would win Or advance after watching the pathetic behaviour displayed. IMO.

The head coaches should have grabbed these players by their necks and benched them on the spot. Fassel and Mooch both blew it.