Posted on 05/24/2009 4:58:17 PM PDT by neverdem
CALIFORNIA FINDS itself in more than a bit of a bind: Facing at least a $21 billion budget deficit, the state could run out of money in a matter of weeks. Borrowing to help fill the hole will be challenging and expensive, given that California has the lowest credit rating of all 50 states. Last week's warning by Standard and Poor's to Britain about a possible debt downgrade will make risky government borrowing even more difficult. The state would like to see Uncle Sam pick up part of the tab; but as steeped in the bailout business as the feds have become, there are strong reasons for them to refuse to add California to the list of recipients.
This is a budget crisis that has been a long time coming. The requirement of a two-thirds vote in the legislature to raise taxes or pass a budget has exacerbated partisanship and made sensible budgeting impossible. The initiative process -- which too often allows politicians to turn the hard decisions over to voters who, surprise, aren't always willing to make them -- results in a crazy-quilt fiscal scheme whose ever-changing priorities leave it underfunded and inherently unstable. When they do make decisions, legislators have routinely elevated the interests of public employees unions over the broader interests of the state, producing crushing costs from high salaries and benefits. Temporary measures and gimmicks have been...
--snip--
Bailing out the banks was defensible because of the critical and central role they play in the economy. Bailing out the auto companies may have made sense in order to save jobs -- though now that the government is heading for long-term ownership, we are beginning to doubt the worth of that policy. Bailing out the states would be an even more perilous road to start down.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Nam Vet
We don’t riot in Cal. According to Maxine Waters we only revolt. And I agree, California IS revolting.
When the mother’s day checks bounce, run.
5) California will continue to be a hostile environment for private enterprise.
Re your #5, I posted this comment this past weekend:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2257296/posts?page=26#26
“Not really a surprise with left wing governors, left wing legislators and left wing mediots pushing anti business liberalism 24/7/365.
We “ain’t” seen nothing as the unions in these blue states will be pushing some pretty out rageous demands.
One I can’t identify yet due to negotions and no documentation. Apparently, the union that services specific businesses statewide lost a lot of pension funds during the economic meltdown. So now they are demanding that the employers make up the losses and even fund the losses from this year and following years due to the fund being down last year and this year.”
Since then, I have discussed the union pension shortfalls for union thugs with a few younger relatives in fairly high level jobs in their various companies representing various industries. California isn’t the only state where this witches brew is being heated up.
Union Pension funds are in real peril with the economic meltdown and the normal robbery of the Pension Funds by the top Union Thugs.
Many private enterprise corporations are looking at going into bankruptcy and radical reorganization, if their unions try to force them to make up the market losses and normal thievery of the Union pension funds. Some will just go into bankruptcy and close their doors.
I guess Obaba never factored that into all that "change we can believe in" (/snic).
California needs a Constitutional Convention to start from
scratch.
Union Pension funds are in real peril with the economic meltdown and the normal robbery of the Pension Funds by the top Union Thugs.
“Is WaPo into a into a fiscally conservative recovery?”
Probably not. In ordinary times, they would be supporting a bailout. But these are not ordinary times. They control all branches of government decisively and they do not want to waste precious federal money on the States. The money that would bail out CA (and then the next 25 states that request a bailout) could also be used to pay for single-payer health care or a scad of other worthless left-wing projects.
Giving that money to CA makes it harder to pass a bunch of those left-wing projects.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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