CA begins issuing IOUs.....for the Peons.

[Straha]

This problem isn't going away. Both parties are so kool-aid swollen that they will not agree to compromise. The Federal Government will not step in because it sets a horrible precedent and because there are a lot of other states in the same mess (Pennsylvania isn't paying state employees, New York is damn close to a crisis, and IIRC there were really ominous rumblings in Florida) and they don't want to fix those either.

This same thing happened to New York City back in the 70s. What happened then was a bunch of buisinessmen got together and bailed the City out by backing a huge bond measure. In return they got strict controls over spending and taxation and forced the city to balance the books. It worked, if only barely. Considering how many rich folk reside in Cali I think a similar solution is possible, and may be the only sane way out.

[MKSheppard]

I'm seeing estimates that the cost of providing services to illegals to the CA state government is about $4-5 billion annually.

Even if we lop a bit off that, that's a fair chunk of change, which could close the budget deficit; while not actually hurting any services for people.

But all the Governator wants to do regarding this is:

--Have the Feds deport 8,000 illegals in CA prisons to save $180 million.
--Eliminate benefits for LEGAL low income immigrants to save $120 million.

So esssentially, he's going for the easy pick -- people in CA jails; and penalizing people who actually followed the rules and are legal.

Link

In a nutshell, this issue seems to be symptomatic of the entire CA government -- they're afraid to make hard decisions; or ones that aren't touchy-feely, and instead offer cheap platitudes.

[Darth Wong]

I'm seeing estimates that the cost of providing services to illegals to the CA state government is about $4-5 billion annually.

How are these estimates calculated? Every figure I've ever seen on this subject has been fiercely disputed.

Even if we lop a bit off that, that's a fair chunk of change, which could close the budget deficit; while not actually hurting any services for people.

Ummm, "services for people"? Illegals may not be your favourite people, but they are still people.

But all the Governator wants to do regarding this is:

--Have the Feds deport 8,000 illegals in CA prisons to save $180 million.
--Eliminate benefits for LEGAL low income immigrants to save $120 million.

So esssentially, he's going for the easy pick -- people in CA jails; and penalizing people who actually followed the rules and are legal.

Link

Did you read the article? It says the courts rules that it was unconstitutional to deny education and emergency health services to illegal immigrants.

In a nutshell, this issue seems to be symptomatic of the entire CA government -- they're afraid to make hard decisions; or ones that aren't touchy-feely, and instead offer cheap platitudes.

They're "afraid" to ignore federal law and the constitution? I would hope so. In any case, I don't see how you can say this is a great idea when it's illegal, inhumane, and you don't even know how much money it would save (if any; it could very well cause economic chaos to drive that many workers out of the state), while simultaneously dismissing the importance of refusing to pass a $16 billion tax increase which would go much farther toward solving the state's budgetary problems.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Remember the thing that got Davis recalled was a bill to increase the fees for older cars, and SUVs which on average are more gas hogs.

[Master of Ossus]

Remember the thing that got Davis recalled was a bill to increase the fees for older cars, and SUVs which on average are more gas hogs.

What got Davis recalled was the California energy crisis, which he and the Legislature created.

I don't understand all the hand-wringing in this thread about how Californians are starving, now. California has historically provided an incredibly high-level of social services, and there's more than room to trim those without hurting anyone seriously. Take the 20-student/teacher thing that the Teacher's Union forced down the state's throat. That's actually been linked to reducing quality of education while simultaneously being more expensive, but it's a sacred cow for the Teacher's Union. Or the California Solar Initiative, or Low Income Energy Efficiency, or any of the other incredibly wasteful and utterly inane things the state does every year. If it doesn't seem like there's room to cut social services without causing riots, it's because you've bought into the Legislative Kool-Aid.

[Darth Wong]

What's California's per-capita government budget compared to that of other states? I'm curious just how much they deserve their reputation for being the biggest social program spenders in the country.

EDIT: I just did a bit of searching, and found a few links:
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSum ... Charts.pdf
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/budge ... 7048_7.pdf

So, according to the government figures, California's state government spending for 2009 is $111 billion, while (randomly chosen) Michigan's state government spending for 2009 is $23 billion. California's population is ~37 million and Michigan's population is ~10 million, so this (admittedly very simple) comparison would suggest that California's state government spends roughly 30% more per person than Michigan does.

There's also http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/texas-budget-overview which says that the Texas state budget is $82 billion. Since its population is ~24 million, this would suggest that Texas actually spends more per capita than California does, but the source looks like some kind of political advocacy site, so I'm not sure of its reliability. The actual Texas government sites seemed to provide plenty of information but no easily located summary.

[Broomstick]

Keep in mind that it's not just the per capita spending by the government but whether or not there is sufficient income to pay the bills. There is nothing wrong with spending on various programs as long as you pay for them. If California spends twice as much per captia as some other state that's fine - as long as it's all paid for. That means taxes. But what have Americans been doing for the past couple decades? Cutting taxes. Which means cutting government funding. If comparable cuts weren't made in government programs - or worse yet, if government spending increased during those years... well, that leads to bankruptcy. Plain and simple.

[Darth Wong]

Keep in mind that it's not just the per capita spending by the government but whether or not there is sufficient income to pay the bills. There is nothing wrong with spending on various programs as long as you pay for them. If California spends twice as much per captia as some other state that's fine - as long as it's all paid for. That means taxes. But what have Americans been doing for the past couple decades? Cutting taxes. Which means cutting government funding. If comparable cuts weren't made in government programs - or worse yet, if government spending increased during those years... well, that leads to bankruptcy. Plain and simple.

Yes, of course. I was just looking at the idea that California's problems are essentially due to out-of-control spending, irrespective of their revenue.

Based on the figures, it would appear that California's state government spends approximately $3000/yr for each person in the state. That's really not so outrageous; if their voters were not so stupid about taxes, they could probably balance their books.

[MKSheppard]

Based on the figures, it would appear that California's state government spends approximately $3000/yr for each person in the state. That's really not so outrageous; if their voters were not so stupid about taxes, they could probably balance their books.

Maryland spends about $2,450/yr per person in state, and also has a lower overall tax rate -- remember that while localities may add their own taxes; the state government doesn't get that money.

[Darth Wong]

Based on the figures, it would appear that California's state government spends approximately $3000/yr for each person in the state. That's really not so outrageous; if their voters were not so stupid about taxes, they could probably balance their books.

Maryland spends about $2,450/yr per person in state, and also has a lower overall tax rate -- remember that while localities may add their own taxes; the state government doesn't get that money.

Well there's a good example: $3000 is higher than $2450, but not really that much higher. Certainly not so much higher that we can justify these right-wing comments saying that revenue increases can't possibly solve the problem since spending is "out of control" yadda yadda yadda.

[Broomstick]

Looks more to me like tax cuts are what's out of control.

I mean, no one likes to pay taxes. I don't like having to pay rent every month, either - but I'd like being homeless even less. You have to fund government somehow, it's a necessary evil.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

In Washington State, which relies entirely on fees, a 7.5% sales tax, and property taxes, and has no income tax, our 2007 - 2009 biannual budget (we budget for two years so we don't have ridiculous yearly budget fights and we can do more long-range planning) was 59.5 billion, or 29.75 billion a year. This means that Washington State spent about $4,542 dollars per individual citizen in the 2007 - 2009 period, with our population being slightly more than 6,549,000. Our budget shortfall despite having much lower levels of taxation than California, and all our taxes being of the kind which is more effected by this recession, averaged to $687.00 per person per year, a stiff 9 billion over two years. Despite this we closed the budget with 5 billion in re-allocation and fees increases and 4 billion in cuts successfully. California conversely started with a 32 billion budget deficit, closed it down only to 23 billion, and since has seen it rise back up to 26.5 billion, all for a single year, a cumulative of 35.5 billion, with a population of 36 million, 750 thousand that yields a deficit of $966.00 per person. So the Californian deficit was 141% the size of Washington State's (per capita), despite the fact that they only spend about 65% of what we do per person.

So what that clearly tells you is that there's something very, very bad going on structurally with the Californian government, because despite having higher taxes they run a budget smaller than we do per capita while being unable to close deficits, which we can successfully close. Somewhere, something in California is just fundamentally wrong. Our deficit averaged to 15% of our budget, their deficit was something like 32% of their budget. Where the hell is the rest of that money going, and how are we able to fund services to such greater levels, on lower taxes, without crippling the state with debt service, which clearly isn't happening as we were fully able to avoid insolvency, where California essentially is now insolvent.

[MKSheppard]

Good work; Marina. I'm sick of the cry of "CA needs moar taxes!" when CA's taxation rates are already hovering at the top in the Union already. Raise them any higher; and CA's economy will crash harder. We're already seeing this, with Los Angeles' film industry imploding; something like only 35% of all hollywood films were filmed there in 2008, as opposed to 66% in 2000 -- same goes for TV shows, with the result that a whole crapload of businesses geared around the film industry are crashing and burning.

Link

California's share of U.S. feature film production dropped to 31% in 2008 from 66% in 2003, according to the California Film Commission. That largely reflects a falloff in the Los Angeles area, where feature filming activity in 2008 was nearly half what it was at its peak in 1996.

Television production, which recently has been a more reliable source of jobs in the region, is also declining. A recent survey from FilmL.A. Inc. found that 44 of 103 TV pilots this year were shot in such disparate locations as Canada, Illinois, Georgia, New York, Louisiana and New Mexico.

[Darth Wong]

Unfortunately, state budgets appear to be complex enough that there is no accepted figure for total spending, because there are expenditure from "general funds", expenditures from "special funds", expenditures from "bond funds", and all of these figures are actually projections. The earlier source I found indicated $111 billion spending, but this one says it's $135 billion. Let's go with the higher figure: it would indicate that California is spending roughly $3650 per person. That's still not outrageous. Certainly not so much that one could not imagine the people being able to bear the revenue burden. Unfortunately, they have that whole "don't raise taxes for any reason" mentality.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Doing some more research I've found out that the difference in per-capita spending between California and Washington is actually false because the voters have passed initiative after initiative which demands fixed, automatic levels of spending for their programmes, which are provided without funding. The end result of this is that a substantial part of California's much higher taxation never actually reaches the legislature, since the budget only consists of spending that the legislature has control over, whereas the special funds mandated to fund these legally mandated spending levels for initiatives that the voters have passed, never actually are available to the legislature for cuts or modification. This means that California actually spends much more than its budget indicates, and that a substantial fragment of the incoming taxes that the Californian government receives are automatically allocated to these funds for these programmes without any ability on the part of the legislature to modify them even with its 2/3rds consensus, which is, to put it mildly, a unique and completely and utterly insane part of the Californian budgetary system not shared by any other US state I know of, suggesting it's the lack of limitations on the initiative process which are what's really fucking California over, and for that matter directly led to the travesty of Prop 8, too.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Unfortunately, state budgets appear to be complex enough that there is no accepted figure for total spending, because there are expenditure from "general funds", expenditures from "special funds", expenditures from "bond funds", and all of these figures are actually projections. The earlier source I found indicated $111 billion spending, but this one says it's $135 billion. Let's go with the higher figure: it would indicate that California is spending roughly $3650 per person. That's still not outrageous. Certainly not so much that one could not imagine the people being able to bear the revenue burden. Unfortunately, they have that whole "don't raise taxes for any reason" mentality.

The thing that's as confusing as hell is the fact that we're budgeting more than $4,500.00 per person up here in Washington and are yet somehow ending up with lower deficits that are successfully bridged, with lower rates of taxation, whereas California has higher rates of taxation and yet seems to spend less than we do, though doing some research on those special funds suggests that actually it's entirely possible the Californian budget is bloated to even higher levels than 135 billion.

[Darth Wong]

In Washington State, which relies entirely on fees, a 7.5% sales tax, and property taxes, and has no income tax, our 2007 - 2009 biannual budget (we budget for two years so we don't have ridiculous yearly budget fights and we can do more long-range planning) was 59.5 billion, or 29.75 billion a year. This means that Washington State spent about $4,542 dollars per individual citizen in the 2007 - 2009 period, with our population being slightly more than 6,549,000. Our budget shortfall despite having much lower levels of taxation than California, and all our taxes being of the kind which is more effected by this recession, averaged to $687.00 per person per year, a stiff 9 billion over two years. Despite this we closed the budget with 5 billion in re-allocation and fees increases and 4 billion in cuts successfully. California conversely started with a 32 billion budget deficit, closed it down only to 23 billion, and since has seen it rise back up to 26.5 billion, all for a single year, a cumulative of 35.5 billion, with a population of 36 million, 750 thousand that yields a deficit of $966.00 per person. So the Californian deficit was 141% the size of Washington State's (per capita), despite the fact that they only spend about 65% of what we do per person.

So what that clearly tells you is that there's something very, very bad going on structurally with the Californian government, because despite having higher taxes they run a budget smaller than we do per capita while being unable to close deficits, which we can successfully close. Somewhere, something in California is just fundamentally wrong. Our deficit averaged to 15% of our budget, their deficit was something like 32% of their budget. Where the hell is the rest of that money going, and how are we able to fund services to such greater levels, on lower taxes, without crippling the state with debt service, which clearly isn't happening as we were fully able to avoid insolvency, where California essentially is now insolvent.

Are you sure about those figures? I looked at the Washington State budget highlights and they appear to do a biennial budget, covering the 2009-2011 period, while California does an annual budget, covering the 2009-2010 period.

[Broomstick]

Unfortunately, state budgets appear to be complex enough that there is no accepted figure for total spending, because there are expenditure from "general funds", expenditures from "special funds", expenditures from "bond funds", and all of these figures are actually projections.

Nor does it help that all 50 states tax/budget/spend differently which makes comparison difficult. Some states have no income tax. Most do. Some states allow cities and other municipalities to impose income tax (Detroit does this) while other states forbid municipal income taxes. Fees are different everywhere, too.

You wind up comparing apples to oranges to kiwifruit.

[Darth Wong]

Nevertheless, expenditure figures are less messy than taxation figures, and it does show that the right-wingers need to back up their claim that California's expenditures are so obscenely high that no reasonable amount of taxation could possibly cover them. They make this claim rather stridently by naming certain programs they consider ridiculous, not by producing any kind of figures.

[Master of Ossus]

The problem with simply comparing state budgets to see how much higher CA spending is (aside from the fact that it seems to ignore the CA power/utilities projects, which actually chew up CA tax dollars) is that it doesn't take into account the efficiency of spending. It's easy to say "Pay more taxes" when you're just looking at how short revenues are from spending, but when you look at the retarded programs that are still being funded, it's hard to justify not cutting taxes and removing the retarded services to make up the difference. There's no reason to demand higher taxes when there are literally funded programs that accomplish nothing. And when you compare (say) what CA's public education is like, compared to states that spend vastly less than we do, it's hard to explain to taxpayers why they should pony up to bail out the Legislature from the mess that they've made.

[Darth Wong]

Again, that's an entirely qualitative argument.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

In Washington State, which relies entirely on fees, a 7.5% sales tax, and property taxes, and has no income tax, our 2007 - 2009 biannual budget (we budget for two years so we don't have ridiculous yearly budget fights and we can do more long-range planning) was 59.5 billion, or 29.75 billion a year. This means that Washington State spent about $4,542 dollars per individual citizen in the 2007 - 2009 period, with our population being slightly more than 6,549,000. Our budget shortfall despite having much lower levels of taxation than California, and all our taxes being of the kind which is more effected by this recession, averaged to $687.00 per person per year, a stiff 9 billion over two years. Despite this we closed the budget with 5 billion in re-allocation and fees increases and 4 billion in cuts successfully. California conversely started with a 32 billion budget deficit, closed it down only to 23 billion, and since has seen it rise back up to 26.5 billion, all for a single year, a cumulative of 35.5 billion, with a population of 36 million, 750 thousand that yields a deficit of $966.00 per person. So the Californian deficit was 141% the size of Washington State's (per capita), despite the fact that they only spend about 65% of what we do per person.

So what that clearly tells you is that there's something very, very bad going on structurally with the Californian government, because despite having higher taxes they run a budget smaller than we do per capita while being unable to close deficits, which we can successfully close. Somewhere, something in California is just fundamentally wrong. Our deficit averaged to 15% of our budget, their deficit was something like 32% of their budget. Where the hell is the rest of that money going, and how are we able to fund services to such greater levels, on lower taxes, without crippling the state with debt service, which clearly isn't happening as we were fully able to avoid insolvency, where California essentially is now insolvent.

Are you sure about those figures? I looked at the Washington State budget highlights and they appear to do a biennial budget, covering the 2009-2011 period, while California does an annual budget, covering the 2009-2010 period.

Uh, Mike, I said that the biennial budget was 59.5 billion, and then divided that in half to get the comparison with California. See this figure which shows that we actually hit even more than that with the 2008 supplementals.

[Questor]

Actually the whole state budget allocates just under $290 billion dollars. More than half of that is considered "non-state funds"

You can see the true totals by drilling down into the subsections on here: State Budget Website

Much of this, especially in the EDD and Education budget, is federal money. But the legislature will sometimes cut money where federal money makes up for it, so you have to look at the whole picture.

[Darth Wong]

Uh, Mike, I said that the biennial budget was 59.5 billion, and then divided that in half to get the comparison with California. See this figure which shows that we actually hit even more than that with the 2008 supplementals.

Sorry Marina, I didn't read your post thoroughly enough. But as Broomstick points out, taxation is really complicated. Rates and fees are complicated in particular, but if you look at California's total state revenues vs Washington's total state revenues, it doesn't seem too mysterious at all. California projects revenue of $103 billion: obviously far less than its projected $135 billion spending. Washington State projects revenue of around $30 billion: roughly the same as its spending. You say Washington State has much lower taxes than California, but if anything's fishy, it would seem to be that statement, because its total revenue is much higher per capita than California's revenue. That revenue has to come from somewhere, and in lieu of some other explanation I would have to assume it's taxes.

[JCady]

Nevertheless, expenditure figures are less messy than taxation figures, and it does show that the right-wingers need to back up their claim that California's expenditures are so obscenely high that no reasonable amount of taxation could possibly cover them. They make this claim rather stridently by naming certain programs they consider ridiculous, not by producing any kind of figures.

One right-winger I know continues to dogmatically insist that all government budget problems must be fixable by simply streamlining and eliminating government waste, so there's no need to even think about ever raising taxes or cutting services, just scream at the government long and loud enough to force them to "clean up their act".