Thursday, May 14, 2009

California legislators begin to sober up

From the LA Times, comes the following straight-down-the-road, just-the-facts-ma'am, "bias? what bias?" article;

Schwarzenegger budget would fire 5,000 workers, release up to 23,000 prisoners

Holy crap! Releasing prisoners? That sounds horrible! We'd better do whatever he says!
The governor offered two scenarios. The first was grim, to address a $15.4-billion deficit that finance officials say the state will face even if voters approve a set of ballot measures Tuesday. The second was devastating, intended to close a $21.3 billion gap if the measures fail.

Which is probably prudent, because it looks like the propositions are going to be smacked down harder a conservative point of view in an institution of "higher learning."
Depending on the size of the budget gap, the state would also borrow up to $2 billion from local government...

That's one of the tricks here; these propositions are not so much about cutting funding to Sacramento as they are about starving local governments. See, the Sacramento career politicians are WAY too smart to put ballot measures up that would actually affect them. These are for shuffling funds around, so funds that were voted in for one reason (say, funding mental health facilities), could be moved into the pot of local government tax dollars they usually return to the local governments for projects, funding, etc. The real losers here, will be the local governments. Sacramento will still suffer from the overall shortfall, but they'll see to it the locals are squeezed as much as possible.
...and release up to 19,000 undocumented immigrants from state prisons...

Oh dear god! How could they just let them go! That's horrible! We'd better do whatever he says!
...turning them over to federal authorities.

Wait... So, he's going to "release" them into federal custody? Wait a minute...

Hey Arnold, wasn't there a politician who said he would do just that as soon as he was elected to help California's budget woes? Who was that politician again? OH YEAH! It was you.

But what about those 23,000 prisoners they're going to release? We can't let that happen! We'd better do whatever he says!
Up to 23,000 other state prisoners could be sent to county jails.

Oh, so they'll be "released" into county jails... Huh. See, to me; that's not the definition of the word "released" at all. I wonder if the LA Times realizes the title of their article may be misleading?
In either budget scenario, Schwarzenegger would also lay off 5,000 workers...

HOLY SHIT! He's cutting workers from non-essential services! I'M SO CONFUSED! I thought that was impossible and inconscionable! You kept saying that you'd cut 10,000 firefighters, policemen, and emergency responders before you'd even THINK of cutting workers from the;
California Division of Recycling
California Legislature Internet Caucus
California Office of Natural Resource Education
California Office of the Ombudsman
California Pollution Control Financing Authority
California Rivers Assessment
California Spatial Information Library
California State Railroad Museum
California Acupuncture Board
California Board of Chiropractic Examiners
California Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair
California Commission on Aging

(and over 500 more!!!)
...sell the Los Angeles Coliseum, Sports Arena, San Quentin State Prison and other facilities

Right, because when your gambling problem gets out of hand, it's time to sell your TV... That'll solve ALL your problems... for a few minutes...

These props are going down, and I hope the rest of the country watches intently as California's legislators realize the keg is dry, and sober the fuck up.

You had better get your family ready...

It's going to be one hell of a hangover.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG! The sky is going to fall after all...

NO on props 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d and 1e!

There is one more prop out there 1f. kfi640.com say to vote no on it!? So I am confused??? 1f is a prop to freeze legislative compensation during budget problem years (as in you did not do your job so you are lucky to have a job let alone get a raise). Is this another one of those hidden not so trivial attempt by the guberment to mess with us? I say no but the clowns in Sacramento might have secreted some pork in the proposition that I am unaware of.

Any input on prop 1f would be great.

vote no on all props I think!

Fletch said...

John and Ken want to vote down 1f because it came from Abel Maldonado. The fiscal benefits would be minor, so they would rather smack Maldonado with a "no" vote. They also probably wanted to keep their voter guide simple; all "no"s.

From what I can tell, 1f seems alright. It doesn't stop per diem and expenses for legislative attendance, but it still seems alright.

The other funny thing about 1f, is there is no one against it. D's and R's are all behind it because they know it's going to pass, and want to show how willing they are to take a personal financial hit when times are bad. Not much of a hit, but a hit nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

thx ET!