Arnold puts 200.000 on minimum wage

[cosmicalstorm]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger apologized Thursday as he eliminated 22,000 part-time and temporary positions and ordered that 200,000 state workers receive the federal minimum wage.

The governor, who said he is trying to avoid a "full-blown" financial crisis in California, signed an executive order making the cuts.

State legislators are grappling over how to close a $15.2 billion budget gap.

Can somebody explain this to me (im a European) -- I thought California was one of if not the richest area in the entire world?
Why cant they pay their bills??

Sorry if I come of as ignorant.

[Murazor]

While I don't have the relevant figures handy, I suppose that it is an least in part the logical consequence of the USA aversion to "big government". Also, I vaguely remember reading that California imports a great deal of electricity that is heavily subsidized by the state to avoid damage to the technological industries around Silicon Valley and such.

People with better information than myself will show up in short order, I'm certain.

[White Haven]

If I recall correctly, it's a direct, VERY pointed response to the state legislature failing to pass a budget. He's taking a big risk with the chance of backlash against him, rather than them, but the rough message he's trying to drive home is 'Look, these senatorial fucks are sitting there stroking it and we are OUT OF MONEY until they pull their pants up.'

[Beowulf]

Because someone had the bright idea of making certain sections of the budget mandatory. So even if the budgeted amount of money is more than necessary, the legislature can't redirect the funds to where it's actually needed.

[SirNitram]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger apologized Thursday as he eliminated 22,000 part-time and temporary positions and ordered that 200,000 state workers receive the federal minimum wage.

The governor, who said he is trying to avoid a "full-blown" financial crisis in California, signed an executive order making the cuts.

State legislators are grappling over how to close a $15.2 billion budget gap.

Can somebody explain this to me (im a European) -- I thought California was one of if not the richest area in the entire world?
Why cant they pay their bills??

Sorry if I come of as ignorant.

I'm gonna guess the whole 'Corporate and richest top percentiles taxes fell through the floor decades ago and kept falling' contributed.

[Stormbringer]

Can somebody explain this to me (im a European) -- I thought California was one of if not the richest area in the entire world?
Why cant they pay their bills??

Sorry if I come of as ignorant.

As long as you ask and pay attention, people here are generally pretty happy to answer questions even if they're fairly basic.

The reason California can't pay it's bills is a number of factors. And while it has a pretty significant tax base, it's not exactly rolling in dough. Like most of the US, it doesn't have the tax rates of Western Europe. There are a lot of loopholes and subsidies which cost California money, which makes that impressive economy (and as mentioned, the power driving it) a mixed blessing. In particular, electricity and water are perpetual trouble spots. California has a rather neglected electrical capability and a goodly portion of it requires expensive, extensive water infrastructure to exist. That's a pretty big chunk of their burden, especially now. So that's one reason the economy isn't the mint it should be; they essentially buy their economy with tax dollars.

Secondly, California just has a huge spending problem. Some of that's reasonable social welfare, some of it misguided programs, and some of it's just plain old pork. In many ways they're like slightly more socially responsible Dubyas. There simply isn't the effort put into controlling discretionary spending that there should be. In many ways, Arnold is good for the state in that he has some capital outside the convetional horse trading which helps in times like this. Of course even he's stuck with a state of politicians that took the same classes on accounting as the Bush Administration.

Thirdly, a lot of California deals with the issue of illegal immigration. Both on a state and local level, there's a fairly significant cost associated with illegal immigration and labor. Part of that is services used but a good part of it too is also the affects of illegal labor on the wage and tax base.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Can somebody explain this to me (im a European) -- I thought California was one of if not the richest area in the entire world?
Why cant they pay their bills??

Sorry if I come of as ignorant.

It's on the high end of the income spectrum, but some states such as Maryland and Massachusetts are higher.

Also, why can't California just make more energy. There's plenty of land in the Eastern parts, and I'm sure they have the skilled labor to make nuclear power work.

[MichaelFerrariF1]

Also, why can't California just make more energy. There's plenty of land in the Eastern parts, and I'm sure they have the skilled labor to make nuclear power work.

Nuclear power is a political death sentence. It's the Greenpeacers who have a big environmental megaphone, not people who are educated about nuclear power.

[Surlethe]

Also, why can't California just make more energy. There's plenty of land in the Eastern parts, and I'm sure they have the skilled labor to make nuclear power work.

Do you realize just how long this sort of infrastructure improvement takes? Or how big an expense it is? California would have a dozen budget crises over, each worse than the last, before the first of the new nuclear plants came on line. And to top it off, the investment in nuclear power would be quite significant relative to the state's budget; where would they find the money in the first place?

Edit: More nuclear is a good rule of thumb, but in this case you're offering it as a solution to the wrong problem. Because it is a long-term investment, it won't fix any of the budget woes, which are necessarily a short term problem.

[aerius]

Also, why can't California just make more energy. There's plenty of land in the Eastern parts, and I'm sure they have the skilled labor to make nuclear power work.

California is home to a crapload of greenies and environmental lobbyists, they would all go apeshit if someone wanted to build a powerplant, let alone a nuclear powerplant. Remember the scene in Borat where he was damn near lynched by the rodeo crowd? That's pretty much what would happen if someone tried to build nukes in California.

[Stormbringer]

Also, why can't California just make more energy. There's plenty of land in the Eastern parts, and I'm sure they have the skilled labor to make nuclear power work.

They can. And are putting in solar and wind and other things along that line. The problem is that they're not particular efficient and don't produce a lot compared to a lot of power hungry business.

Of course plants that would help like coal, oil, and nuclear were flat out impossible thanks to rampant, idiotic, NIMBY environmentalism. California has been a center of Green politics for decades and in many ways shot themselves in the foot with it.

[MichaelFerrariF1]

Also, why can't California just make more energy. There's plenty of land in the Eastern parts, and I'm sure they have the skilled labor to make nuclear power work.

They can. And are putting in solar and wind and other things along that line. The problem is that they're not particular efficient and don't produce a lot compared to a lot of power hungry business.

Of course plants that would help like coal, oil, and nuclear were flat out impossible thanks to rampant, idiotic, NIMBY environmentalism. California has been a center of Green politics for decades and in many ways shot themselves in the foot with it.

When my Formula SAE team was driving through SoCal to get to the FSAe competition, we drove through the massive wind farms. They all talked about how great windmills and solar power are. I mention that they were weather dependent and mentioned that I preferred nuclear power, at which the car got up in arms. You'd think engineering students would be more rational, but I guess the irrational fear is everywhere.

[SirNitram]

The Eastern parts? As in on the far side of the mountains? And you're going to build nuclear power there?

Where will you get the water?

Once you're past the mountains of California, it's a damn desert. And non-deserts are having trouble with keeping their nukes flowing with water, as was posted a while back in SLAM.

[Coyote]

Proposition 13 didn't help, but then again I can see why so many people once agitated for it.

Prop-13 was a bill in the California legislature years and years ago... I think in the 1970's or something, that essentially froze property taxes in place for all existing homes at the time. A sweet deal if you already owned property, but it meant that the tax burden was carried by anyone who arrived after that. So there was a huge deficit of tax income, and California has some of the most generous welfare programs in the country.

Prop-13 was recently undone by sunset clause, but for years it hampered income as state budgets grew well beyond the 1970's-era tax base it was founded on.

The state is, I think, still recovering from that.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Do you realize just how long this sort of infrastructure improvement takes? Or how big an expense it is? California would have a dozen budget crises over, each worse than the last, before the first of the new nuclear plants came on line. And to top it off, the investment in nuclear power would be quite significant relative to the state's budget; where would they find the money in the first place?

Edit: More nuclear is a good rule of thumb, but in this case you're offering it as a solution to the wrong problem. Because it is a long-term investment, it won't fix any of the budget woes, which are necessarily a short term problem.

If they're doling out huge sums of money to subsidized electricity from out of state, then it might be financially sensible to fund the building of the nuclear power plants with debt. But I don't have the numbers so I can't say for sure.

That said, I wouldn't say that it's "A solution to the wrong problem". How are they going to make their budget/economy work in the long run if they don't have a cheap and renewable source of energy, and have to subsidize importing from out of state?

[Master of Ossus]

If I recall correctly, it's a direct, VERY pointed response to the state legislature failing to pass a budget. He's taking a big risk with the chance of backlash against him, rather than them, but the rough message he's trying to drive home is 'Look, these senatorial fucks are sitting there stroking it and we are OUT OF MONEY until they pull their pants up.'

That's right. The legislature went on vacation, rather than passing a budget (which, historically, they've always done before their recess). One of the options a governor has is to put people on minimum wage unless there's a budget passed, so he did it because he's sick of them dicking around over it.

California's running a large deficit (for a state), but it really has nothing to do with inability to pay, but rather unwillingness to pay on the part of the legislature and the governor getting fed up with their indifference.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The Eastern parts? As in on the far side of the mountains? And you're going to build nuclear power there?

Where will you get the water?

Once you're past the mountains of California, it's a damn desert. And non-deserts are having trouble with keeping their nukes flowing with water, as was posted a while back in SLAM.

Nukes don't need water, Martin. Just the type of nukes we happen to use.

[SirNitram]

The Eastern parts? As in on the far side of the mountains? And you're going to build nuclear power there?

Where will you get the water?

Once you're past the mountains of California, it's a damn desert. And non-deserts are having trouble with keeping their nukes flowing with water, as was posted a while back in SLAM.

Nukes don't need water, Martin. Just the type of nukes we happen to use.

I'd say that's a pretty big obstacle to overcome, then, though not an insurmountable one. We'd need to import the skilled labour, and H-1B's are already used up in days of their allocating. Or hours, last time around.

[MKSheppard]

We'd need to import the skilled labour, and H-1B's are already used up in days of their allocating. Or hours, last time around.

There's nothing remotely exotic about nuclear power plants, or their operation. It's just that due to the nature of them, they have to have everything triple checked during construction, which adds delay and cost.

[SirNitram]

We'd need to import the skilled labour, and H-1B's are already used up in days of their allocating. Or hours, last time around.

There's nothing remotely exotic about nuclear power plants, or their operation. It's just that due to the nature of them, they have to have everything triple checked during construction, which adds delay and cost.

Different type of plant, different type of training. You'd need imported skilled labour to run the thing and teach new guys. Do you need everything written in crayon to the finest detail, Shep? I didn't say there was anything 'exotic' about them, just that if the type Marina mentions aren't the type used here, you need imported expertise, and there's a big, fat problem there.

[Adrian Laguna]

If it weren't for the NIMBYs and Greenies, you could just put the dammed things on the coast. Plenty of water there that nobody's using.

[Darth Wong]

We'd need to import the skilled labour, and H-1B's are already used up in days of their allocating. Or hours, last time around.

There's nothing remotely exotic about nuclear power plants, or their operation. It's just that due to the nature of them, they have to have everything triple checked during construction, which adds delay and cost.

Well, there's something pretty exotic about the reactor itself. But the bulk of the plant is nothing special.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, seriously. Turbines are.. Turbines. The containment dome is.. A big dome made out of concrete to certain specifications. Exacting ones, but it's still just a concrete dome.

It's only when you get into the hot loop that you have to design for all sorts of problematic things, and of course then the reactor core is rather special in particular beyond that.

[Uraniun235]

If we're willing to compromise efficiency in order to get the damn nuke plants built, we could build them near the coastline of Northern California (where there's far fewer people), build a desalinization plant next door and use that for the water source. It incurs transmission costs, but that shouldn't matter too much since they already import a whole bunch of electrical power from up north.

Also has the added benefit of getting them away from the huge faultlines in Southern California.

[Lonestar]

Can somebody explain this to me (im a European) -- I thought California was one of if not the richest area in the entire world?
Why cant they pay their bills??

Sorry if I come of as ignorant.

In their Infinite Wisdom, the people of California have voted in the past on initiatives that restrict revenue options and mandated that a certain percentage of the state budget goes to various programs.

Arnold is trying to make financial decisions, but there aren't a whole hell of a lot of tools at his disposal.