9 thoughts on “Remember in 2009 when California ran out of money”

1. I’m not the biggest fan of Arnold, but I do think he is trying to bring in reform and stability in California’s finances, which have been unrealistic for a while now. His no tax stance was a bit ridiculous; there was no way that California would maintain its level of services without a new source of revenue. But then again the May Special Election measures were defeated, which would have brought additional funding to the state.
   It would be easy to blame California’s budget problems on a scapegoat (a la the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001 that led to the recall of Gov. Davis, a result of deregulation not Davis.) But most of the budget problems that the state is facing have been in the making for decades and not the sole responsibility of one person. Whether it be the citizens unwillingness to accept tax reform, ballot box budgeting on feel good programs, failure to compromise, or approving laws that have left us with an inept, inexperienced, polarized legislature.
   http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap29-2009jun29,0,4866723.column

   The elephant in the room is Prop. 13 that has left the state underfunded. Calls for a split roll (assessing business and residential properties differently) should probably be heard, but that would lead to higher taxes on business, mom and pop as well as corporate. Or maybe regular reassessment of all properties, so that property owners pay taxes on the current worth of the property not the property worth in the 1970s. But Prop 13 is only one of many issues that Californians need to address.
   Social programs like welfare or cal works have been the source of abuse of years, we all know of people who get government checks but refuse to get a job and spend money on getting high. While on the other end, a neighbor works in a sweatshop sowing even taking work home with her just to support her 3 kids with no help at all. Those who play by the rules don’t get shit, while others game the system. All while this adds to the expense of the taxpayers. And as much as we want to help the less fortunate, we want to do it on others backs. Yes let’s support education, but let’s do it by taxing the rich or corporate America anyone else but me.
   Yes politicians are usually looked down on for a good reason. But we are the ones who vote them in or don’t do anything to keep them out. Term limits have capped the career politicians, but left us with a new batch of inexperienced politicians who are more idealist than pragmatic. Gerrymandering only helped to fuel the polarization of our politicians.

   Browne, you write “And he’s been the Governor of California since 2003, so it’s his fault. If you’re the manager of a company that can’t pay it’s bills and that company’s credit is destroyed owing to you not being able to figure it out, it gets to be your fault.”
   What does that then say about the citizenry, who have lived in California for generations? True its not our job to fix the details and figure out the budget, but we decide who is in office and what tools we give them to do their task. The initiative, referendum and recall gives Californians direct say in how the state is ran, but responsibility comes with direct democracy.

   You write “When is LA Magazine going to do a story on this guy, because if anyone is a failure it’s Arnold? I’m wondering why he isn’t getting the nasty press that he deserves. He has destroyed the state.”
   I think that comes after the article where Californian’s failures are addressed. Because before we scapegoat anyone we have to look at ourselves first.

2. rob, I know a lot of people on welfare who don’t abuse it, too. Why punish them for the behavior of those that are abusing it?

   My problem with Arnie is the way the press is giving him a pass. He ran on the same “change” platform Obama did, yet changed nothing. Of course the legislature is partly to blame. But remember, Arnold said he would change them! That was his promise. He promised to reach across party lines and get things done. Fail, fail. When he couldn’t, he held special elections, which were either voted down, or, they passed, yet the initiatives wound up resulting in nothing. Fail. The press is already starting to turn on Obama, just 6 months into his presidency, taking him to task for his broken promises. Arnold has been governor 6 years. 6 years, and it’s still, “Well, it’s not his fault, it’s the legislature..they need to get on the ball!”. Fair enough, then it’s not Obama’s fault, either. It’s the U.S. congress and senate. You can’t have it both ways.

   My opinion is that both of them are accountable. They made promises, they have to hold themselves to them. That being said, Obama has only had 6 months…Arnold has had 6 years. Arnold is a failure, period. And, if the people should hold themselves accountable for anything, as you suggested, it’s that they were naive enough to vote for an actor who knew absolutely nothing about running a state, and proved it for 6 years.

   How could Gray Davis had done worse than this? I’m no fan of Gray Davis, nor other spineless Dems like Jerry Brown. But our state would be far better off had the recall never happened. The Republicans put an action hero out there, and the people fell for it. The result was a disaster. The people who got him into that office only care about the rich, and the rich are the only people doing well in Cali now. Mission accomplished. Now please send that moron back to Hollywood where he belongs.

3. Robthomas

   i’m not advocating eliminating welfare programs, rather remarking on the inefficiencies and flaws of the programs. That’s why i said, those who try to play by the rules get shit, while others game the system. A social safety net should be provided but making sure the money goes to those who deserve it.

   Wont bother trying to defend arnold, its a waste of my time. but i will suggest that for a reason of disparity in media coverage maybe business. Large media entities like CNN or Fox news are businesses and cover whatever gets them ratings or ad sales. And there are 49 other states who probably couldnt give less of a shit about Cal. As for local media, whatever remains of it, its either too small to provide full coverage of Cal issues.

   I disagree that the special elections have been complete failures. IF the measures in May’s election would have passed we would eased our budget deficit and provided increased tax revenues for the next 2 years. Years ago we approved a measure that requires a balanced budget so that the state doesn’t continuely borrow itself into a hole as it has been doing. Though given the credit crunch and the states bad credit rating, i doubt we’d be able to borrow money anyway.

   I dont think you can say that the only rich people got him in office,with nearly 5 million votes, many regular folks got him into office. Also half the problem that has led to our budget problems is that the rich haven’t been doing as well. As their revenues have fallen so have the states, which is dependent on the wealth for a large percentage of its revenue. So despite what many people believe, taxing the wealth and business more is not going to solve our budget problems. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124726545081325435.html

   I also think that people should be held accountable for more than just electing arnold, but that’s just my opinion. I tend to believe that people should make an effort to educate themselves about these issues, elections and their communities, but again just my opinion. Educate themselves about what their elected officials are doing and the ramifications, just as we hope to hold the accountable for their actions.

4. Rob,

   I didn’t vote for Arnold. I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut these numbers:
   • K-12 and community college education — $4.3 billion
   • Higher education — $3 billion
   • Medi-Cal — $1.3 billion

   In addition to the millions in welfare that is being cut. That decision was made owing to Arnold and his inability to compromise. And he wanted to revoke Prop 98, the insanity.

   If you run a place, you get blamed for it being a piece of crap.

   If you are a teacher and all of your kids do poorly on the tests, you get blamed. I’m using Arnold’s rules. He can’t change the rules for himself. He wanted to implement merit pay, so that means if your kids scored higher you got paid more, now that must mean he doesn’t give a damn about the bigger picture, so I’m simply giving him the courtesy of treating him how he treats others trapped in a big ball of bureacracy.

   I don’t remember the bigger picture being brought up when Arnold fired the nursing board. He fired the nursing board, because he felt they were doing a bad job and sense they were in charge of certain activites in order to change how it was done he felt he needed for them to no longer work there.

   I don’t like how Arnold is doing things and if LA Mag can write a flippant article on Antonio why not a flippant article on how we are giving out IOUs, our schools are underfunded, our social service agencies are over worked, these agencies need more money not less.

   If Arnold wanted to make some real changes and be the change agent the platform which he was elected under he should revoke Prop 13, but no that would take some real change. He could at least revoke Prop 13 for businesses.

   And I’m still confused at the “looking at myself” statement. I’m mad I didn’t start writing about how big of an idiot he was five years ago, well I guess pooh-pooh to me for that one. This is my political action. I don’t like him and I’m expressing that, what else should I be doing? I mean I love how we the little people should be doing more to help the economy, how much more does the gov’t and corporate America want from us. Do they want us to sacrifice our first born children or something?

   He doesn’t raise taxes, but his action is going to cost people money in increased tuition, increased illness (if people can’t go to the doctor and they get the swine flu who does that impact, oh yeah us), bigger classrooms which means that again people want be educated they won’t find jobs, so they’ll do what exactly, crime, move…again costing us more money.

   He couldn’t even bring himself to tax cigarrets, if he claims he is not beholden to special interests what the hell is that?

   The fact is the kinds of cuts he made will cost California dearly in the future. Nicholas Freudenberg did a study in 2006 NY did this same thing in the 70s, they cut than $10 billion in public services during the 1970s it cost the NY $54 billion during the next 20 years.

   It’s going to cost us alot more. These cuts are short sighted and stupid. He is not a trailblazer. He is an idiot that just killed this state. He killed our college system. Our college system is one of the most beautiful things about America. It is accessible. It was cheap. We have one pretty much everywhere. There is no state that it’s easier to go to school in than California and he killed that.

   Browne

5. 8 years of Bush, 6 years of Arnie, and the only people who are doing good are the rich. The press in any other free country would be printing front pages with DUNCE written over the heads of their leaders, if they ever had leaders this bad. It’s just that they never have. England was pretty harsh on Blair for his chumming up with Bush. I can only imagine if they ever had a PM as stupid and as full of shit as Arnold or George W. There would be a fucking revolution. Guaranteed. But here in the states, we go easy on Republicans. We’re afraid of them. They’re the bullies on the block. We blame Democrats because they’re pussies and they’ll accept it. That’s why California’s problems are not all Arnold’s fault, yet Obama should be impeached immediately for how bad he’s screwed the country up since being inaugurated…6 months ago. As far as the press only caring about ratings and money, I think that’s where Michael Jackson and John and Kate come in. When it comes to politics, there is an agenda. And for all of the “Bush bashing” conservatives have accused the “libral meedia” of, the media has seemed to have stopped short of blaming Bush for the mess we’re in now, taking the position that it’s not all Bush’s fault. Sure it’s not all his fault. Nothing is all of anyone’s fault. But he’s more responsible than anyone else. So the press is not being pragmatic and looking at all sides of the story, or merely deciding what political stories are better for ratings. They’re being pussies. They’re still hearing the footsteps of Fox News’s prime time hell hounds. Somebody just needs to grab them by the shoulders and tell them that it’s not 2004 anymore, and Obama just got more votes than any candidate in history dissing the shit out of Bush. It’s ok. Really.

6. Rob Thomas said…

   It’s ok. Really

   Are you sure Rob? Are you sure you don’t need a prozac or something?

7. Browne, good points about prop 13, btw. You can really trace California’s budgetary problems to it. Before it passed, weren’t California’s public schools ranked near the top of the country? The decline happened long before the influx of Mexican immigrants, despite the fact that the right wants to blame them for it. The bottom line is, we had a system to sufficiently fund basic public services, and they ripped it right out. The only pro prop 13 arguments I’ve ever heard involved well off people saving money. Considering how much they had to spend on private schools to keep their kids away from the public schools that were devastated by prop 13, they wound up losing whatever they saved from prop 13, anyway, and then some. Prop 13 sure didn’t hurt private companies competing with pubic services, did it?

8. A book to check out that discusses this is Paradise Lost, California Experience, America’s Future by Peter Schrag.

   Do you know California spends and average of 58,000 a year on inmates in the prison system and only 5,900 dollars on per student in the higher education system.

   Where are our priorities. Prop 13 destroyed California’s education system up until the 70s California was a model state and went into decline starting when they cut off the money.

   People always want to say that education isn’t about money and it’s true, it isn’t just about money, but it has alot to do with it. I would like to see pay your bills, buy groceries and continue to run your household if your money was cut in half. No matter how much managing you do you are going to feel that money being gone.

   California is now at the same level of the Southern half of the United States and that is a shame. I read this great article in the Nation (I think) its about how the South did not invest in it’s population which is why in that section of the country you still have some of most poor people in the nation and it shows how it’s directly related to choices the South made during the depression era.

   Browne

9. The “people” of California(glad i didn’t vote for him) elected a dumb, ex body builder, with virtually no political experience to be governor, need I say more? Sure, it’s not all his fault, these problens have been brewing for years, my point is that perhaps someone with more experience could have done a little better with these problems, would you let a mechanic with no experience tune up your car? Even for Free?? I hear the new budget deal just plays “kick the can” with the state’s problems. The current legislature, including Speaker Bass should be ashamed of themselves, Gloria Romero shame on you too!!! I tried unsuccesfully to contact Gloria Romero to find out her position on the budget talks and her staff was instructed not to say ANYTHING!! WOW!!!!