“After a series of meetings, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, top White House economists Lawrence Summers and Christina Romer, and other senior officials have decided that California could hold on a little longer and should get its budget in order rather than rely on a federal bailout.”
Whoopee! Could this be true? My dysfunctional Obama-lite, (only because they cannot print dollars), state is not going to defy the laws of economics and actually have to adhere to a semblance of fiscal sanity? Please say it is so, the Golden State may be saved from it’s leaders, (I doubt).
And why do I doubt such? From the Washington Post –
“These policymakers continue to watch the situation closely and do not rule out helping the state if its condition significantly deteriorates, a senior administration official said. But in that case, federal help would carry conditions to protect taxpayers and make similar requests for aid unattractive to other states, the official said. The official did not detail those conditions.”
Uh-oh, the caveat that I feared, at least one can hope….for that is all I will have with tincup in hand, ‘hope and change’.
Update : Nick has it 100% correct at It’s Just My Opinion
“Take, for example, just the latest end-run around the will of the people. As a refresher for readers not in or too familiar with California recently, the state has a budget problem, to the tune of roughly $26B this year (based on optimistic estimates, no doubt). The most recent attempt to “confront” the massive wasteful corrupt out-of-control spending which has put the state into this position was to propose massive tax hikes, which would have passed, except for a while back someone did a smart thing, and passed an amendment requiring tax increases to be approved by either 2/3 of the legislature, or the voters. This amendment is the only thing standing between California and a complete collapse into anarchy.
Predictably, the legislature failed to get a 2/3 majority for the tax hikes: thank goodness there are still a few sane people there (and man, that’s a thankless job, to work with scum all day and just oppose everything they try to do, and then get lumped in with them in generalizations by bloggers like me; I have respect for those few members of California’s legislature, keep on keepin on, please). The tax increases then went to the voters, where they were soundly and entirely predictably rejected as the complete wrong approach to fix out-of-control spending. The Governator even pointed out that the voters had rejected new taxes, and the will of the people was to cut spending instead. Now, as we barrel along toward running out of money in roughly two weeks, we have the budget proposal from the Democrats in the legislature.
So what did they do to balance the budget? The proposed tax increases, again. No, you didn’t read that wrong: after all the back and forth, years of delays, decades of overspending, getting every single one of the tax hikes they put on the special ballot for the voters just a few months ago rejected by the people of California, those arrogant bastards proposed more tax hikes!”
Exactly right as Nick says, the State is bankrupt, in concept and reality. The thing that strikes me the most is that the Obamanation is pushing the precise policies that CA Democrats have ruined our state with. Silver tongues and ‘hope and change’ will not exclude the country from a similiar disaster in failing to follow simple laws of economics. As I comment to Nick at his site here –
“We have essentially had unanimous, unfettered 1 party rule here for decades now. Even the Governator, (after about 1 year of independence), became part of the machine here. What have we gotten for progressive/liberal/Democrat dominance? The worst fiscal calamity of any state in the Union, businesses and productive earners leaving in mass exodus, a welfare state that would support the entire GDP’s of some counrties. And yet as Nick points out here, it still isn’t enough. This is the model that the Obama Administration is pushing and it will spell a CA like disaster for the entire nation eventually. That is why guys like Nick and I may sound so alarmist at times. We know this. We know that the same pols that have wrecked our beautiful state are now taking their wretched policies the the national table. We know that the nation will not be immune to the destruction of said policies as CA is a prime example of.”
Remember this readers!
8 comments:
This is exactly why California is often referred to as "The Land of Fruits and Nuts" (no offense, LCR).
Make no mistake about it: There are too many electoral votes at stake in the next election for Obama NOT to authorize a bailout of the state.
Excuse me while I go heave up my dinner…
BlackandGold – Wait….I hear the beggar's blues in the distance…..no offense taken here, this state is a model of the exact opposite direction for the country as a whole.
"The man who builds himself a factory, builds a temple: the man who works there worships there."
There's many people who feel the way as you do, and not just in the Mid-West. In California as well. That frustration, it’s here – it’s there – hell, it’s everywhere.
On one side we have large business interests aligning themselves with an established elite who doesn't give a damn about the rest of the country. GM and Chrysler screw their bondholders; who cares, they get golden parachutes and the poor saps who make money get stuck with the bill. The union hedge fund gets most of its money, so it's happy, but what does all the stockholders get? Nothing, they're common shares and that's just equity – it's only held by the idiots who spend most of their time working.
Health Care? Medicare and Medicaid are down the hole a few trillion, let's add some more benefits; after all, it's just money! I know you and me are a little hesitant, we've never looked very nicely at HMO's or most healthcare providers – less so when they join the government's new initiative to expand on their policies which have done nothing; by my eyeballin', then raise prices for those people who don't get a free ride on Uncle Sam. Hell, except for the doctors of the AMA, most of the big corporate fat cats love this plan; doesn't that tell us something?
Where's my Uncle Sam? My Uncle Sam, I rush to say, is not the Uncle Sam I recognize today. Instead of vibrant, steady, confident and assured; telling the American people that they are not free from responsibility but for more responsibility – he is now a baby-sitter. A weak, castrated and emancipated figure handing out increasingly worthless pacifiers to the electorate as they trundle off to dully elect another round of the same old song and dance.
Which doesn't even begin to cover the other side of mobsterist-unionism and holier-than-thou socialist pseudo-intellectuals crowding in wherever giant business isn’t kissing their ass. The former seems like it is getting a fresh wind with a willing, insulated, power base in Washington and companies increasingly more regulated, subsidized or otherwise victims of government interventionism. Look at Chrysler, their union hedge-fund/Political Action Committee is getting half the company. While the pseudo-intellectuals are making it hard to keep their decadent life-style going; especially in California though. Hell, with a EPA and Californian legislature all the more willing to classify everything, and anything, as pollutants; only thing left is to tax the substance with the highest quantity on Earth, that is to say carbon.
Why? As far as I can tell the only reason we're taxing carbon is because said taxes are endorsed by a man whose movie even his own side admits is wrong, at best: exaggerated; there’s no where to go but straight down for us Californians. Fancy all those Austrian economists turning out to be right with state interventionism, there’s no other state with more interventionism and there’s no worse credit rating then California’s.
Such thinking is heresy; the Christian spiritualism of God and heaven has been replaced by the secular spiritualism of "hope" and "change-" the omniscient and omnipotence of the state to come together with imperfect minds to make perfect plans. To say for one second that you, one man, has the right to apply justice to the law – is not, and has not, been a possibility for some time.
Sounds good rebel, i've heard many a time that california seems to love government programs that it cannot afford. Perhaps this might wake your leaders and their socialist supporters up for once.
One thing i must add though, i doubt very much that Hussein is denying them the money to teach them fiscal responsibility, is it a sign of trouble, that they don't really have all the money they thought they had?
So they said no, but if things get worse they may reconsider. Well, with those strings, I can see why nothing is being done to fix this mess here in CA. The federal government will only reward them if they are a BIGGER failure than they already are. That's akin of I need protection from a bully and rewarding the bully only after he's hurt me some more. Given the clowns we got running this state, we're going to see more waste, not less.
As for why not now? BO still needs to sell his universal health care plan and that's not likely given all the other new debts that he's just pass and giving an irresponsible state money wouldn't help his cause. Not to mention what other states would follow. I think he want's to get his grubby hands on health care then with Government, being 1/3 of our GDP, add banking, insurance, financing, the auto, and the health industries, he'll be close to controlling well over 50% of the economy and give us the finger that he so wants to give the working and acheiving class. He's not saying we're number 1 either. By then, he can spread the wealth to the dysfunctional states because over half of us will be completely dependent on him.
Many blue states will be coming to Obama with the "tin cup", before all this is over. For its those states with their progressive programs(handouts) who are really in the red. To bad they couldn't be red in another way. It the masses would setup and take notice things might quickly change.
Rebel, most politicians have only two things in mind while in office making money and getting re-elected and will do anything to advance those ends. I'm reminded of a quote from a southern general shortly be the great battle at Gettysburg, "Politicians will complicate the obvious, while trivializing the momentous", this fits our current president perfectly. I'm adding you to my blogroll at TOTUS.
Madmath – I agree, unfortunately
Ron – I guess that now that the can of worms is opened, there's no turning back….
Ron – Awesome quote too, thanks for the blogroll…
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