Calif. sucks.

[goGopherBill]

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer Kevin Freking, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 22 mins ago
WASHINGTON – California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday he's heard "loud and clear" a voter message to take care of deficits through budget cuts alone, without passing additional costs along to them.

Voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected Schwarzenegger's package of budget-balancing measures that he promised would temporarily fix the state's financial crisis.

Instead, he now faces a $21.3 billion budget deficit.

Schwarzenegger said the state's residents have had to sell off motorcycles, second cars and hold garage sales to make ends meet in recent months. Now, they're telling state officials that the government has to shrink, too.


No.. now they are telling the rest of the country to bail them out ..
so they can continue to live a life style they cannot afford.

Now the calls of Raciest,bigotry and gay bashing will appear...either way they cannot pay for them selves...


I wonder how much those poor illegals will need to sell off.
Those on welfare ...for generations..the teachers making $8,000 a month on retirement benefits along with lots of other public service employees.

LET MEXICO HAVE IT...they took it back by sheet numbers anyway...just as their president instructed them to do.The same president wants to legalize POT...great let Calif have it..


we will swap CUBA for Calif..and be way better off.

[soothsayer]

Bigot.

[hammer]

Look, we knew this was going to happen -- that all these propositions would go down in flames except the one that prevented a salary increase for our State Legislators. We have the highest tax rate in the nation when you roll Federal/State/Property/etc. all together. That's why I've been begging (well, really suggesting) that Washington send us the GITMO detainees and therefore the few jobs that would be created by housing them here in the Golden State. Again, I congratulate and thank the State of Texas for actually creating jobs under this tough economic environment, something we in Kalifornia can only dream about. Your tax dollars will be used disproportionately to help us poor Golden Staters survive.

I'm sure glad Arnold (our governator) was in Washington yesterday getting a head start on the BIG handouts we'll need from the Federal Government (or really ultimately other state's tax payers).

How did we get in this mess you ask? Well, we grew the size of our Government by rougly 20 percent (allowing for per capita population increases) since the mid-90's. While that was happening our schools, roads, and a whole host of services actually got worse. Where did that all that money go you ask? Well, things like CA disability, welfare, medical expenses for non-citizens, and benefit packages for CA state workers to name a few.

At least we are providing a good lesson for some of you out there in other states. That is, don't follow our lead, or you'll end up in the poor house like us.

[soothsayer]

But the weather's nice, so there's that.

[hammer]

May 20, 2009 16:50:43 GMT -5 @soothsayer said:

But the weather's nice, so there's that.

Some out here say, "It's the price of nice weather." But if you think about it, nice weather should lower goverment costs.

[bunnywailer]

The burden of supporting so many non-contributing illegals into the revenue stream will forever plague California as a state.

This was Arnold's "mea culpa" election, which now frees him to go Terminator on the state. Nobody can whine about the cuts he's about to make, since it was the voters who decided it. So no sob teacher's union stories or no sob state worker's union demonstrations needed.

He's a lame duck, anyway, and he can't run for President, either. So now he really has nothing to lose.

I will say he's handled this situation better than his predecessor, Gray Davis. Davis was, I believe, a good person who tried, he just didn't have the savvy of Swarzenegger.

[goGopherBill]

I am confused..

Conservatives say the Calif. taxpayers spoke loud and clear NO NEW TAXES...

Or Since they supported OBAMA 2-1 are they saying the rest of the country should help pay for them?

Or do CALIF residents want it all.. weather..cheap foreign labor and high wages and benefits for themselves?

The drugs,,sex and rock n roll...

meanwhile Kansas pays for it..along with 49 other states.

Minnesota is doing it different...Pawlenty RULES.

[soothsayer]

Pawlenty is a joke. Rather than pay for it, he's going to borrow his way to a balanced budget (while cutting school money, healthcare, jobs). That's a real conservative for you. Not.

I can only imagine what the property taxes are like in Minnesota. That's the problem when you have a governor more interested in his national political career than the state he is supposed to be governing.

[goGopherBill]

Giggle....


My farm is just under 40 acres...$1200 property taxes each year.

TRY AGAIN..

[paloalto]

I agree with Bob that Arnold turned out to be worse than Davis....At least Davis was fairly straightforward with his politics:...spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend.

Something that one might criticize Davis about is that he should have known the Internet Bubble and all the revenue from Silcon Valley would not last forever....He couldn't refuse any of the demands by state government unions, but that is true of almost all California politicians.

However, Arnold made all kinds of promises during his campaign in the recall election....stop the spending, cut taxes, renegotiate all the state government employees pension contracts that were obviously not going to be sustainable.

Arnold broke all his promises about fiscal discipline.... Now he won't even be honest about it....Arnold was a disaster for California.

[goGopherBill]

What did Calif expect?

a MOVIE ending where a commando rides in and blows the economic mess away?
It is easy for Calif to amend their constitution.

Just pass a balanced bill ..(like MN.) that forces the hard changes every year so they dont get out of hand.

I was born and raised there..

I lived through the BROWN and RONNIE YEARS.

the exact same stuff happened then.

[soothsayer]

Minnesota's economy is already out of hand. Borrow, borrow, borrow -- cut, cut, cut -- and property taxes through the roof. Maybe it works for Bill, but it sure won't for most Minnesotans, especially those who live in cities.

[paloalto]

May 21, 2009 8:44:45 GMT -5 goGopherBill said:

What did Calif expect?

a MOVIE ending where a commando rides in and blows the economic mess away?
It is easy for Calif to amend their constitution.

Just pass a balanced bill ..(like MN.) that forces the hard changes every year so they dont get out of hand.

I was born and raised there..

I lived through the BROWN and RONNIE YEARS.

the exact same stuff happened then.

It is not so easy....One big problem is that the state employees unions control California....They have virtually unlimited funds to influence elections....Money buys power....Power often corrupts.

One example is the head of the teacher's union in LA...He is refusing to allow even one employee to be layed off though LA is about to implode fiscally along with the state....Not only is he refusing to discuss layoffs, he is demanding pay raises for teachers....LA's teacher's average salary is 35% above the national average.......What can you do?

We are also on the threshold of having more people in California collecting a government check than those in private enterprise....This factors into the personna of the voting public.

In the end, you are right...California deserves what it gets.

I think bankruptcy is the only answer....Otherwise the fundamental problem of California politics will never be solved.

No federal bailout...It will only exacerbate the problem in the long-run because politicians will always assume the safety net is there.

[Deleted]

California's system is broken. Gerrymandered districts have taken the majority of residents and marginalized them--making districts totally safe and thus opening up primaries to party radicals--to the right in the Republican Party and to the left for the Democrats.

It doesn't help that tax rates are tied up by propositions--which were put in place to curb special interests 100ish years ago...but now are managed by special interests.

California needs balanced districts--put those in and give reasonable people office again and things will get better.

California needs to reform its proposition system. The idea of popular involvement is admirable--but that is not what it is any more.

Failing this, California should redo its state constitution--and restrict the convention to ONLY discussing districts, open/closed primaries, and issues of revenue generation.

[soothsayer]

Does anyone really think there are enough jobs in private enterprise to employ the Californian populace? What happens when you take away these state jobs?

The answer is simple: Make Bruce Willis share.