Dems in California want to borrow 9 Billion to save welfare.

[Moonbeam]

Are you insinuating that California's massive illegal population and strangehold by unions are not severely hurting their financial situation?

Let me guess, its corporate America!!!

Go on Batshitbeam, go on some long rant that makes no fucking sense at all where you say I am filled with self-hate. We all know its coming.

No long rant needed. California's economic crisis is the result of many factors, state employee retirement wages and a downturn in the economy and property tax loses to the state, services that go to illegals and many others. You made a simpleton attack on a limited point of view with an equally simpleton point of view so I pointed out how stupid that was.

 

[spacejamz]

I wonder how much money CA would save by not providing free public education for children of illegal immigrants (and their free meals as well), charging illegals for their ER visits, only printing forms in English and only providing English customer service counters at all state and local government offices.

CA is obviously bleeding money away that they don't have...

For ER visits, we should be asking them before any care is provided if they are Mexican citizens, and if so, we need to send the bill to Mexico. If Calderon is so concerned about his people, he should be concerned about their health. Surely, he doesn't want the US tax payer to cover the hospital bills for his people...

and please spare me the sales tax that illegals pay for their beer and cigarettes...that doesn't even come close to covering the items I mentioned above...and the property taxes being paid by 4 families living in one house?

 

[Double Trouble]

I don't like it, they should just repeal prop 13.

Yes, more taxes and spending is always the right answer I know, it sounds absolutely amazing and astounding, but sometimes, it is necessary to <gasp> cut spending, and <gasp> cut union benefits. I know, it's shocking!

 

[nick1985]

Yes, more taxes and spending is always the right answer I know, it sounds absolutely amazing and astounding, but sometimes, it is necessary to <gasp> cut spending, and <gasp> cut union benefits. I know, it's shocking!

Whatever you do, just make sure it doesnt raise prices for produce. senseamp will throw a fucking fit if his head of lettuce suddenly costs 8 cents more.

 

[bfdd]

"entitlement programs" are discretionary. At some point they were put into place they can be removed if wanted.

I do agree that Prop 13 was a good idea that has had increasing issues over time. Now it probably is not such a great idea. Sort of like "entitlement programs". I'm sure many sounded good and it seemed like they were affordable. Now they're not affordable.

Michael

Prop 13 wouldn't be so bad if it was only for home owners and not businesses also.

 

[JeepinEd]

Yes, more taxes and spending is always the right answer I know, it sounds absolutely amazing and astounding, but sometimes, it is necessary to <gasp> cut spending, and <gasp> cut union benefits. I know, it's shocking!

How dare you mention cuts! You know that the only way to resolve any fiscal problems we may have is through tax increases.

On a side note, although CA's budget has doubled in the past 10 years, our roads still suck, the DMV still stucks our water mains still suck, we still don't have adequate fire/police, hospitals are closing, the majority of schools are sub par, so....... Where the hell is all that extra money going????

 

[Slew Foot]

How dare you mention cuts! You know that the only way to resolve any fiscal problems we may have is through tax increases.

On a side note, although CA's budget has doubled in the past 10 years, our roads still suck, the DMV still stucks our water mains still suck, we still don't have adequate fire/police, hospitals are closing, the majority of schools are sub par, so....... Where the hell is all that extra money going????

Pensions for public unions

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Yes, people should work for less wages because the executive staff and management deserve that money, because they sit on their ass and go to meetings.

As much as it pains me, I have to agree with you. I rarely see the "you'll just have to take lower wages or have no job" crowd apply this same logic to those in upper management. When I see executives getting multi-million dollar bonuses while laying people off and driving the company into the ground, it ROYALLY pisses me off and no one on this forum would consider me even remotely liberal.

 

[nick1985]

Where the hell is all that extra money going????

Footing the bill for Juan and Alonsa's 15 kids.

 

[Fern]

Is it just me, or does anyone else reading the below get the impression that this is some serious bulljive?

OK, we're raising a new tax to pay off the loan, but we're cutting another (different) tax to offset it so we can ram through CA Congress?

So it's revenue neutral; but if so how does that provide any money to actually pay off the new/proposed loans?

The proposal by Assembly Speaker John P&#233;rez, D-Los Angeles, calls on the state to borrow $8.7 billion in bonds to be repaid over 20 years, plus interest, with a new tax on oil companies that would raise roughly $1 billion a year.

Crucial to the plan, Assembly staff members said, is that the oil tax could be passed by a simple majority vote of the Legislature - meaning no Republican support is necessary - because the new tax would be offset by a decrease in the sales tax.

Then there's this:

P&#233;rez's plan would borrow $8.7 billion from Wall Street against the California Beverage Recycling Fund, which collects deposits on bottles, cans and other recyclable containers and is currently underfunded because of past raids by state officials.

So, the recycling fund will be used to secure the loan. But what does that have to do with the new tax intended to pay for the loan repayment?

Is Wall Street actually going to allow CA to put up the recycling fund as collateral yet not impose any limitations on the cash flow from the recycling fund? That seems hard to believe. I would think that Wall Street would have to secure rights from that recycling fund cash flow to make the bond issue feasible. So, the loan proceeds would actually be coming from the recycling fund and not the new oil tax. I suppose the oil tax will replace the funds typically 'stolen' from recycling program and used elsewhere. But they're still left with the 'revenue hole' from the reduction in sales taxes.

Looks like a whole bunch of complicated steps to get really no where since no net tax revenue is raised.

Fern

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I don't like it, they should just repeal prop 13.

Don't worry, I'm sure the People's Republic of California won't do anything to illegals, so your produce will still be dirt cheap.

 

[JeepinEd]

Is it just me, or does anyone read the below get the impression that this is some serious bulljive?

OK, we're raising a new tax to pay off the loan, but we're cutting another (different) tax to offset it so we can ram through CA Congress?

So it's revenue neutral; but if so how does that provide any money to actually pay off the new/proposed loans?




Then there's this:



So, the recycling fund will be used to secure the loan. But what does that have to do with the new tax intended to pay for the loan repayment?

Is Wall Street actually going to allow CA to put up the recycling fund as collateral yet not impose any limitations on the cash flow from the recycling fund? That seems hard to believe. I would think that Wall Street would have to secure rights from that recycling fund cash flow to make the bond issue feasible. So, the loan proceeds would actually be coming from the recycling fund and not the new oil tax. I suppose the oil tax will replace the funds typically 'stolen' from recycling program and used elsewhere. But they're still left with the 'revenue hole' from the reduction in sales taxes.

Looks like a whole bunch of complicated steps to get really no where since no net tax revenue is raised.

Fern

This is standard procedure for our legislature. Just shuffle stuff around to give the impression that they are doing something to help the budget, while accomplishing nothing. It's just like when they said they were going to cut a holiday from the CA Union workers in order to save money - of course they don't mention that to appease the unions, they are also giving them an extra floating holiday.

 

[BoberFett]

It's the corporations that promote this entitlement mentality (keep up with Jones's) in the American consumer in order to continue buying their goods and services and until recently giving away cheap and easy access to credit since most didn't have cash.

If Americans got paid what you think they are worth and lived within their means( cash only no credit) where then would these corporations that depend on free spending overpaid Americans be today?

And let's not start on the entitlement mentality of CEO's and the respective members of their boards that believes in rewarding themselves even with the company failing.

I agree with you completely, but corporations are not entirely to blame. Citizens (aka consumers) could choose to have a little self control. Consumerism and the credit card have done incredible damage to this country. Without them, sure our economic growth would have been slower, but at least it would have been sustainable. You can't build an ever increasing economy on debt. It simply doesn't work.

 

[BoberFett]

Wake me up when you understand the difference between discretionary and non-discretionary spending. For example, when you have an entitlement program that has been in place for decades, and it pays out more due to increases in population, or due to a slowing down of the economy, that is non-discretionary spending. It has nothing to do with "liberal legislators" voting for new or increased spending. That's why we break budgets down into discretionary and non-discretionary and talk about "general fund" spending. Recessions kill budgets both by decreasing tax revenues and by automatically increasing non-discretionary spending. A failure to understand this, either on the state or federal level, seems to be the source of a lot of nonsense about who or what is responsible for expanding deficits.

Once again, you are oversimplying a complex problem.

- wolf

Shouldn't entitlements always be a fairly static percentage of the economy? Either your block of entitlement receivers are growing faster than your producers (illegals anyone?) or you have increased your entitlements more than you'll admit.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Yeah, that's what I'm considering, and yes, it does need to go out the door. People tend to not sell their houses around here, and when they do, they keep it in their family either by sale or by inheritence. We have people paying 1&#37; of $100,000 on houses valued at over a million here (that's one-tenth of one percent), and it isn't a few isolated cases. It's common. The problem is not the 1% property tax *rate*. We should have a low rate because of higher property values. The problem is that it's locked in forever. And BTW, it foolishly applies to commerical property as well. If a business operates on a property and wants to sell out, the buyer will take over the business entity and the property with it so that there is no change in ownership. It's ludicrous.

The trouble is our tax structure. We are a little high-average on sales and income taxes, and very low on property taxes. In a typical recession, sales and income tax revenues go to hell, but property taxes will tend to remain more stable. That's why our state budget gets creamed in recessions even though we hardly have increased it in 13 years.

- wolf

If you look at property tax received per person it's quite a bit in CA. The dollar amount. Prop 13 doesn't mean you don't pay property taxes because you bought your house for 100k instead of 1 million now. It fixes the rate at which your taxes can increase. So yeah the state may be losing some money on that, but when you average out the high property values from CA and what not, we're like #5 in terms of dollar per resident from property taxes.

Throwing out Prop 13 out the door isn't the answer today either. The million dollar houses will screw you over in terms of property tax. "Don't buy what you can't afford?" Well the problem is to even live in Silicon Valley, you need to pay well above 500k. In a nicer neighborhood, it's a definite $1 million. To those who got in early, or even just a decade or two early, it's a night and day difference. My house might've gone for $1 million when we first got it, but if you let property taxes rise with the value to $2 million our family would've been flat broke. 1% of 2 million is a buttload of money to be paying every year. Thank goodness for prop 13.

But I do recognizet here are some flaws with Prop 13. We need to start phasing this out to follow other states. It's just like people screaming social security is a scam. Yeah it is, but the answer isn't to dump everyone's accounts and close down SS. It's to allow people to slowly opt out and get in a more viable retirement savings plan. In the end you can close it, but not just like BAM.