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What Happens to California Now?

What Happens Next?

  • Election Results are Challenged in Court and the Will of the Voters is Overturned.

    Votes: 2 8.0%

  • The Messiah Farts Out a "Miracle" and Unlimited Federal Money Flows to Sacramento

    Votes: 5 20.0%

  • The Same People Get Re-Elected, Again.

    Votes: 10 40.0%

  • Whatever Happens, The Taxpayer Gets Screwed

    Votes: 20 80.0%
  • Total voters
    25
Kandahar said:
Tell that to Argentina, Iceland, Hungary, and Pakistan. Nations can and do go bankrupt. I think that bailing out California has the potential to seriously damage the credit rating of the United States (depending on how much cash they actually need, which I don't think has been determined yet). It should be avoided, unless it would result in an Uber-Lehman cascade where all of the banks who have California debt collapse as well.

Californians just voted not to raise their own taxes to prevent their impending bankruptcy...it would hardly be fair to expect the other 49 states to do so. I'd rather let California reap what it sows, if at all possible.
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We Californians sent a message that spending needs to experience drastic cuts, and that there is so much waste that it actually unites disparate ideologies under the idea that enough is enough.
 
the makeout hobo said:
What would you budget cutters take out of the budget, specifically, to balance the budget without raising taxes? I would like to see someone show me how to balance the budget, with the actual numbers, without a tax raise.
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Stop financing illegal immigration, cut off the unions from the bargaining table for a while, and cut unnecessary programs.
 
Kandahar said:
I'm no expert on California politics, since I've never lived there. But Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts seem reasonable to me. They won't close the gap by themselves, but they're a good start. According to Wikipedia:

The last $16.5 billion is to be derived from spending cuts:

* $5.2 billion cut to K-12 education and community colleges
* $1.7 billion by furloughing state employees 2 days a month until June 30, 2010
* $1.4 billion by reducing monthly grants to federal minimum for low-income aged, blind and disabled on Supplemental Security Income / State Supplemental Program and eliminating payments to recent immigrants
* $1.1 billion from CalWORKS welfare programs
* $788 million to the Department of Corrections and Rehibilitation by eliminating parole supervisions for all but those who have committed serious, violent or sexual crimes and reducing the medical budget by 10%
* $742 million to Medi-Cal by eliminating certain treatments
* $692 million by cutting UC and CSU budgets by 10%
* $459 million by eliminating general purpose grants to local transit agencies
* $473 million by reducing state payments for In-Home Supportive Services health workers
* $422.8 million to the Department of Developmental Services
* $275 million by eliminating the state First Five Commission
* $226 million by diverting money set aside in Prop 63 for mental health services
* $163.4 million by continuing through June 2010 "one-time" cuts in current budgets for state couts
* $150 million by eliminting or consolidating varitey of state entities including Integrated Waste Management Board and the California Conservation Corps
* $87 million by making various changes to the Cal Grant program including elimination of new grants awarded on the basis of competition
* $43.2 million by cutting Legislature's budget 10% and eliminating cost-of-living increase
* $37.8 million by eliminating food stamps for legal immigrants not eligible for federal assistance.


Budget cuts suck, but sometimes they're necessary.
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That is the governor on Thursday. Wait until Friday. He is saying everything and nothing.
 
jamesrage said:
Your messiah crap may make people not want to participate in your poll.


I say all of the above. They want this to pass and they are desperate to pass it. So they'll attempt to do what ever they can to ignore the will of the voters instead of exercising common sense by cutting non essential programs.Although voters are to blame for this mess in Commiefornia since they helped create it.
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More like the lack of true alternatives make people not want to participate in the poll.
 
FlappyTheKinkajou said:
We Californians sent a message that spending needs to experience drastic cuts, and that there is so much waste that it actually unites disparate ideologies under the idea that enough is enough.
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Yep. I consider myself fairly liberal, but it seems to me that California needs to make some painful spending cuts. California already has one of the most business-hostile economies in the nation (although my home state of Ohio certainly gives it a run for its money)...so it seems that the tax-hike well is already running dry. Furthermore, it's unlikely that California will be able to secure more loans (unless, of course, the feds bail them out) due to their poor credit rating.

If they can't hike taxes and they can't borrow more money, there is only one option left. I hate cutting public services as much as anyone, but sometimes it's necessary. There are plenty of programs (such as California's education system) that are incredibly wasteful, where budget cuts wouldn't necessarily have to compromise the quality of the services very much.
 
Kandahar said:
Yep. I consider myself fairly liberal, but it seems to me that California needs to make some painful spending cuts. California already has one of the most business-hostile economies in the nation (although my home state of Ohio certainly gives it a run for its money)...so it seems that the tax-hike well is already running dry. Furthermore, it's unlikely that California will be able to secure more loans (unless, of course, the feds bail them out) due to their poor credit rating.

If they can't hike taxes and they can't borrow more money, there is only one option left. I hate cutting public services as much as anyone, but sometimes it's necessary. There are plenty of programs (such as California's education system) that are incredibly wasteful, where budget cuts wouldn't necessarily have to compromise the quality of the services very much.
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Sacramento is out of touch with people like you. They don't understand people like you.

I think a lesson has to be learned from California's public policy. For example, education spending does not go to the children. It goes to simple bureaucracy and as kickbacks for union bribes. A second lesson is that unions are so overgrown that massive cuts from them can be done without affecting their title membership. (Title Membership, for example "Teachers' Union", is teachers) A side lesson from this is that education spending and education performance have nothing to do with each other, and is a bastardization of the concepts of supply and demand.
 
I look at the entire nation's economy as the same problem. California is just a micro example in the larger system. The U.S. has been living luxuriously beyond its means for a long time now, and the financial infrastructure has been mostly propped up with hot air. Printing more and more money with foreign loans is a non-sustainable system; and now, everyone wants to hold up that system with bailouts.

It must come crashing down if something more sustainable is going to take its place. Yes there will be suffering in the process, but at least enter that suffering with your eyes wide open and bite the bullet. Continuing to funnel money into a doomed system by borrowing further or raising taxes is only delaying the inevitable.
 
I agree with whatever happens the taxpayer gets screwed. The governor knelled before the president for federal aid. The governor threatened to lay off more state employees and cut necessary services instead of dumping unnecessary state services and coming up with making state services for efficient and less costly. Instead of releasing non-violent drug offenders, the prison system will release hardcore rapists and killers most likely. What a wonderful world.
 
Kandahar said:
I'm not really sure how big of an impact California's bankruptcy would have. It's the fifth-largest economy in the world, so it would undoubtedly send shockwaves around the world...but it's hard to tell if it would be catastrophic or merely unfortunate, and I can't really decide if I would support a federal bailout until I know that. But I'm inclined to avoid bailing them out if at all possible. I think the biggest risk would be from the banks who hold Californian bonds collapsing themselves.

Does anyone know how much public debt California currently has? That would help provide an idea of how severe the risk to the global economy is.
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The state needs to go bankrupt, it's the only way to fix the problems. About 75% of every tax dollar Sacramento gets right now goes into union benefits and pensions, we need to have those contracts nullified so they can be renegotiated and made more realistic and the only way to do that is bankruptcy. Even if the state is bailed out by the federal government, that's just a temporary bandage, it doesn't change the core problem that the state's finances are fundamentally unworkable.
 
FlappyTheKinkajou said:
Stop financing illegal immigration, cut off the unions from the bargaining table for a while, and cut unnecessary programs.
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You notice Schwarzenegger's list of cuts doesn't mention a penny being cut from the $10 billion we currently spend on illegal aliens, right? And the unions are completely safe, Schwarzenegger keeps signing contracts making them lay-off proof, as he did with the 95,000-member SEIU back in February. They cannot be laid off, they cannot get pay cuts, they don't have to deal with the same reality that every other American does. The state of California is run by the unions, in fact when they had closed-door budget sessions back in February, the only time they were allowed out of the lockdown was so the Democrats could talk to their union bosses for instructions.

It's just ridiculous.
 
Kandahar said:
I was re-reading the best comic strip ever a few days ago, and I came across this. Kinda reminds me of GM and Chrysler, but it could also apply to California:
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QFT, Calvin & Hobbes is pure class
 
Kandahar said:
Yep. I consider myself fairly liberal, but it seems to me that California needs to make some painful spending cuts.
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Painful for who, the people paying the taxes or the parasites consuming them.

Cutting the education funding shouldn't be a problem.

First step: Announce that all parents must register their children for the fall semester by July 31. Part of that process will include the presentation of proof of US citizenship or legal residency. Failure to provide such documentation will disallow the child from enrollment.

That'll cut the needed spending on education by 10-20% right there.

Second Step: Demand proof of insurance, citizenship, or residency for all ER patients.

Third Step: Publish, as a single document, the California budget, line by line, on the internet, so taxpayers can see just what they're money is being wasted on. Not one dime should be spent on "art", "cultural resotration", "homeless", "state beautification", etc etc etc if cuts in essential police or fire suppression services are enacted.


Kandahar said:
I hate cutting public services as much as anyone
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I don't hate them at all, considering the vast spectrum of completely pointless services the state provides to select little special interest groups that provide absolutely no return to the vast overwhelming majority of the people who pay the taxes.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
First step: Announce that all parents must register their children for the fall semester by July 31. Part of that process will include the presentation of proof of US citizenship or legal residency. Failure to provide such documentation will disallow the child from enrollment.
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That wouldn't really help since you'd still have all the over-paid teachers and administrators, no matter how many kids you've got in the classrooms. California teachers are among the highest paid in the nation, thanks to their unions.

Second Step: Demand proof of insurance, citizenship, or residency for all ER patients.
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That's not something they have control over, the federal government requires them to treat all comers regardless.

Third Step: Publish, as a single document, the California budget, line by line, on the internet, so taxpayers can see just what they're money is being wasted on. Not one dime should be spent on "art", "cultural resotration", "homeless", "state beautification", etc etc etc if cuts in essential police or fire suppression services are enacted.
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Now they're talking about getting rid of the "poison help lines" because they need to save money. The one thing they are not going to do is cut a single state worker with the SEIU, cut pay, benefits or pensions, etc. Isn't this the same thing that drove GM into bankruptcy?
 
earthworm said:
The gentleman goes to the trouble to dig up all this info, and this is your response ?????
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Dig up? I thought it was a C&P job from one of SD's rants. :lol:

Seriously though, you need to go buy yourself a sense of humor. ;)


.
 
California has no money and a huge budget deficit yet they can afford a television commercial feature several celebrities and the governor.

I find this to be completely unacceptable.
 
Vader said:
California has no money and a huge budget deficit yet they can afford a television commercial feature several celebrities and the governor.

I find this to be completely unacceptable.
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I'm sure they will be greatly upset that you, someone from CO, find it unacceptable. :lol:


.
 
TOJ said:
I'm sure they will be greatly upset that you, someone from CO, find it unacceptable. :lol:
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They should be, if they're expecting people from CO (and all the other states) to bail them out of this mess.
 
Kandahar said:
They should be, if they're expecting people from CO (and all the other states) to bail them out of this mess.
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Pelosi can count on the Demo politicos from CO for support no matter what some unknown DP members think. ;)

.
 
Cephus said:
That wouldn't really help since you'd still have all the over-paid teachers and administrators, no matter how many kids you've got in the classrooms. California teachers are among the highest paid in the nation, thanks to their unions.
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The first step to loss prevention is to get rid of the non-paying customers.

Once the class sizes have been stabilized at thirty per, which is small enough if the teacher is half-way competent, then we start booting the teachers, not to mention ditching all the free-loading admin.

Not to mention that a law needs to be written forbidding school administrators from ever having been a part of any teacher's union. We need to restore the healthy adversarial relationship between labor and management. For far too long have we allowed the inmates to run the asylum.

Cephus said:
That's not something they have control over, the federal government requires them to treat all comers regardless.
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Ah.

The federal government.

Cite the clause in the Constitution allowing the federal government regulation over public schools.

Cephus said:
Now they're talking about getting rid of the "poison help lines" because they need to save money.
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So? How much help does poison need, anyway?

What did you expect them to do, cut what needs cutting?

Guess what? I don't use the poison help line, so let them cut it.

Cephus said:
The one thing they are not going to do is cut a single state worker with the SEIU, cut pay, benefits or pensions, etc. Isn't this the same thing that drove GM into bankruptcy?
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No.

What drove GM into bankruptcy was it's failure to produce cars people wanted to buy.
 
TOJ said:
Pelosi can count on the Demo politicos from CO for support no matter what some unknown DP members think. ;)

.
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Maybe. I'm sure there are plenty of politicians in Washington who want to help California. And until I see some statistics on the amount of debt California has, I'm undecided on it myself (although I want to avoid it if possible).

However, I think it's a much tougher sell than you're making it sound. All of those politicians from the other 49 states are going to have to go back to their constituents and explain why we should spend federal money to bail California out, after Californians just voted not to spend their own money to bail themselves out.

Not an easy thing to sell.
 
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Kandahar said:
Maybe. I'm sure there are plenty of politicians in Washington who want to help California. And until I see some statistics on the amount of debt California has, I'm undecided on it myself (although I want to avoid it if possible).

However, I think it's a much tougher sell than you're making it sound. All of those politicians from the other 49 states are going to have to go back to their constituents and explain why we should spend federal money to bail California out, after Californians just voted not to spend their own money to bail themselves out.

Not an easy thing to sell.
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One of the arguments it going to be:

California for the last thirty years has paid $1.77 in federal taxes while recieving only $1.00 in federal spending.

A more important argument will be:

The 55 congressmen of California will vote for any and every state bailout package if those other states will vote for California's.

A final argument will be:

It's only paper, don't worry about it. The Messiah will print more.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
One of the arguments it going to be:

California for the last thirty years has paid $1.77 in federal taxes while recieving only $1.00 in federal spending.
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That's a fair enough argument. However, it does not change the fact that Californians have routinely voted to live beyond their means, and then most recently voted not to pay for it themselves. The fact that Californians themselves rejected bailing themselves out is going to make it a much tougher sell that the OTHER 49 states should bail them out.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
A more important argument will be:

The 55 congressmen of California will vote for any and every state bailout package if those other states will vote for California's.
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No other state is as large as California, and no other state has a credit history as bad as California's. If I was a congressman from Idaho or Vermont or Delaware (or anywhere else), there is no way in hell that would be a fair trade. Even by congressional standards of "fair."

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
A final argument will be:

It's only paper, don't worry about it. The Messiah will print more.
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You can never make a substantive post without coming across like the hack you are, can you?
 
Kandahar said:
That's a fair enough argument. However, it does not change the fact that Californians have routinely voted to live beyond their means, and then most recently voted not to pay for it themselves. The fact that Californians themselves rejected bailing themselves out is going to make it a much tougher sell that the OTHER 49 states should bail them out.
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Oh, I'm not defending California's socialist policies, its not like the people I vote for get elected. I was just pointing out a fact.

Kandahar said:
No other state is as large as California, and no other state has a credit history as bad as California's. If I was a congressman from Idaho or Vermont or Delaware (or anywhere else), there is no way in hell that would be a fair trade. Even by congressional standards of "fair."
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What's "fair" got to do with it? Welcome to the world of power.

Kandahar said:
You can never make a substantive post without coming across like the hack you are, can you?
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Because it's a substantive post, the partisans will claim it's a hack, of course.

Oh, wait, did you just do that?
 
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