gunnut

Some of you may know that California government is all of a sudden short about $14 billion over the next 18 months. This came about because the government always projects revenue over the next x number of years and then spend at least that much money. The government believes that the economy is a constant and cannot experience a slowdown. Tax revenue, therefore, cannot decrease.

The real world is different.

Economy is slowing down and affecting tax revenue. California's budget is ALWAYS made with the most optimistic tax receipt in mind. This I believe is due to the socialists in charge of California government.

Ahnold is a free spending socialist. His one redeeming quality is that he absolutely refuses to raise taxes. And he's right. California has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Our 2008 budget is $140 billion, plus/minus a few, but who's counting.

Now the legislature needs to trim something from this massive government waste and they are absolutely stuck. They don't know what to cut.

I figured out why.

California does not have the one thing that liberal socialists like to cut from their government budget...military.

I just think this is funny. As long as Ahnold can hold his line, I will continue to enjoy this socialist mess.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

bolo121

True to socialist tradition he will have to tax the people in the top 10% individual income percentile.
Would be very popular with poor inner city residents and the large poor hispanic population of the state

gunnut

That is very true. Whenever the government needs money, they always take it from the rich. The rich end up paying a disproportionate amount. Then when there's a tax cut, they get the biggest share because they're paying the most. Democrats will then make a claim like "the rich gets a free Lexus while you get some money to by a muffler for your used car."

bonehead

Oh! OHhhhh! I know what they can cut. The CHIP air surveillance for speeders.
They gave me a bogus ticket a couple of years ago. I paid the fine, but I also took my vacation money elsewhere and have not spent a dime in California ever since.

Feanor

They could cut the paychecks of the bureaucrats... oh wait.....

bolo121

Not really. The rich being smart, will pay lobbyists, who will pay Congress, who will put in plenty of loopholes.
End result the hardly pay any tax at all in comparison to, say your average middle class family. I believe Warren Buffet said something about this disparity a while back.

Ironduke

California... I'm sure there's $14 billion in waste somewhere in the budget.

__________________
The Buck Stops Here

gunnut

And you believe everything Buffett says? The guy is a committed liberal socialist hell bent on income redistribution. Easy for him to say now that he's the 2nd richest man in the US. What about the rest of us who havent' even made it to the top 2%?

The top 1% income earners pay something like 30% of all personal income tax. That means the bottom 99% pay 70% of all personal income tax.

Of course not to leave the poor out, nearly all the use tax and sin tax are targetted toward the poor, including Lottery.

Our government doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. The surest way to solve a budget problem is to limit spending. We do it all the time in our daily lives. Why can't the government?

gunnut

Nope. Everything is necessary since we don't have our own military. How about the national guard? Can we cut California National Guard?

Feanor

Yeah. National Guard don't need rifles. You can give them sticks instead.

astralis

gunnut,

answer to that one is easy. you cut government services, you piss off people more than if you run a deficit or if you raise taxes a little. that makes flexibility extremely hard.

bottom line (and to use a cliche) is people want to have their cake and eat it too.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

gunnut

I agree. The fault lies with politicians who buy votes with government programs. That's why I'm against government programs of any kind. It creates a dependency and the problem will never be fixed unless we have a revolution.

astralis

gunnut,

as with all things, there's a limit to this type of thinking. without government programs, the idea of nationhood becomes a lot weaker. after all, who's real eager to defend a government that won't do squat for you?

republican rome was like this. not too much in the way of government services. if there was a fire, well, you better have enough money to afford the firefighters- or else you'd watch your home burn down, and eager real-estate bargain hunters on the side waiting to buy your property on the cheap. sometimes the real-estate bargain hunters would bribe the firefighters to NOT put out the fire.

as a result, people still grew dependent. not on the government, persay, but on their local rich man, the boss of the area.

that's why the libertarian ideal is just that, an ideal. some people are naturally more hard-working/intelligent/clever than others. as a result, they get an advantage. nothing wrong with that, but the possibility is that they will capitalize on their advantage in such a way that they tilt the table against further competition. that's how such things as dictatorships or monopolies form.

gunnut

That's not entirely true. The government could exist first and foremost as a defense against foreign invaders. Internally, this government takes a very laid back attitude with minimal programs for all. The people defend this government so that they could live free and not defend it for the programs themselves.

I'm against welfare programs. Government should do as little as possible. That doesn't mean there should be no community funded firefighting or law enforcement. These programs "promote general welfare" as specified in the constitution rather than to provide specific welfare for a particular individual under a qualifying circumstance.

Government should provide postal service as specified in the constitution. It never said anything about housing insurance, FEMA, Amtrak, unemployment entitlements, food stamps, and a host of other very specific programs. Now we see the government trying to bail out people who bought houses too big for themselves and then offer nationalized health care. None of these things is anything close to "general welfare."

Feanor

Nationalized health care is general welfare. It would be the same for everyone, and indeed work much like the firefighters and police force.