Chocolate icecream

[Dave McReynolds]

The California legislature kept bringing up proposals for additional taxes to balance the budget, with each one being shot down, until it appears that California really has run out of money. This reminded me of an old joke, which most of you have probably heard, but maybe not in the context of the California legislature bringing variations of the same theme again and again to the governor:

 

One day a man walked into an icecream parlor and ask for a gallon of chocolate icecream. The clerk told him he was sorry, but they were out of chocolate icecream. The man thought for a few seconds, and said, "That's okay, just give me a quart of chocolate icecream instead." The clerk again told him he was sorry, but they were out of chocolate icecream of any kind. The man thought for a few more seconds, and said, "Well, why don't you just give me a chocolate icecream cone?"

 

The clerk told him that what we have here is a failure to communicate, but he was sure things would be clarified if the customer would agree to take a little quiz. The customer said okay. So the clerk asked him, "Can you spell the van in vanilla?" To which the customer replied, "V-A-N." The clerk told him "good!" and asked him, "Can you spell the straw in strawberry?" To which the customer replied, "S-T-R-A-W." The clerk told him "good!" and asked him, "Can you spell the fu*k in chocolate?" The customer looked confused, and replied, "There isn't any fu*k in chocolate." To which the clerk replied, "Now I think you're finally getting it!"

[Tasker]

Oh boy, now you've gone and done it...

[AZKomet]

All of us in Az are in the same chocolate ice cream factory as Cali!

[BFish]

off to dairy queen!

[Huzband]

It's like ridin' a Harley.

 

If I have to explain.....

 

Only Whip knows the answer.

[Francois_Dumas]

 

Oh, and to all my Californian friends..... you ARE aware that you were being 'led' by an ACTOR, are you ????

 

Since acting is about 'pretending', maybe that's the solution.

[ESokoloff]

Along the same

.

[russell_bynum]

Francois,

We've had some actors at the helm in the past who did a pretty damn good job.

 

Ahnold certainly didn't win any points with me this year, but he's the least of our problems.

[sgendler]

Presumably they'll eventually figure it out and look at cutting some costs, at which time they may just get some support for subsequent tax increases that are actually perceived as necessary. Probably not, though - on both counts.

[russell_bynum]

Presumably they'll eventually figure it out and look at cutting some costs, at which time they may just get some support for subsequent tax increases that are actually perceived as necessary. Probably not, though - on both counts.

 

 

We already have the highest state income tax, the highest state sales tax, and the 2nd-highest gas tax in the nation. Businesses flee California almost universally because of high taxes.

 

We don't need higher taxes, we need less spending.

[Paul_Burkett]

When governor Schwarzy Schwartz says that the SIX BILLION DOLLARS($6,000,000,000)per year that is spent on illegal aliens is not so much the problem, then perhaps he doesn't know what a problem looks like. Perhaps he can talk to the Governor of Indiana and learn how to get his state bank account into the black instead of the red.

Being a Conservative sometimes means that you conserve the resources you have rather than being Liberal with other peoples money, and when you run out of money.....you quit spending. It is better still if you stop spending before you go broke and bankrupt youe state and it's constituants.

 

My 2 cents.

[Matts_12GS]

When governor Schwarzy Schwartz says that the SIX BILLION DOLLARS($6,000,000,000)per year that is spent on illegal aliens is not so much the problem, then perhaps he doesn't know what a problem looks like. Perhaps he can talk to the Governor of Indiana and learn how to get his state bank account into the black instead of the red.

Being a Conservative sometimes means that you conserve the resources you have rather than being Liberal with other peoples money, and when you run out of money.....you quit spending. It is better still if you stop spending before you go broke and bankrupt youe state and it's constituants.

 

My 2 cents.

 

[EffBee]

Presumably they'll eventually figure it out and look at cutting some costs, at which time they may just get some support for subsequent tax increases that are actually perceived as necessary. Probably not, though - on both counts.

 

 

We already have the highest state income tax, the highest state sales tax, and the 2nd-highest gas tax in the nation. Businesses flee California almost universally because of high taxes.

 

We don't need higher taxes, we need less spending.

 

Mebbee. Or perhaps what we need is a state legislature that's paid the average state wage during its first term, that is not allowed to raise any taxes or fees beyond a public-approved percentage of the state's GDP growth, but gets to keep a public-approved percentage of what it doesn't spend, yet has to campaign for re-election on what it has accomplished and ONLY gets the money from the previous term if it gets re-elected.

 

If they do a good job, save the public money, don't raise taxes much and get reelected, they get to keep the money in the kitty. If not, the money stays in the kitty for a rainy day and the next legislators start with the average salary and zero in their own kitty.

[Dave McReynolds]

The reason the budget problem is not being resolved is that there is a 2/3 requirement to raise taxes. The majority in the legislature are pi$$ed because they can't raise taxes to save their favorite programs, which they feel as a majority they should have a right to do. But the reality of the situation is that they don't have that right, because that's not the way the law was written; written by a vote of the people, not the legislature, I might add. And I suspect that if the people were called on to vote again tomorrow, they would probably vote the same way. I think the people like the idea that it takes more than a simple majority of the legislature to raise their taxes.

 

I have liberal views on many issues, and would like to see many of the programs continue that may fall under the budget axe. However, taking the economy of the whole state down is not the way to preserve these programs or solve the budget problem. The way to solve the budget problem is to quickly produce a budget that will spend no more than is projected to come in, and let the chips fall where they may. If the programs that fall are important enough, people will miss them and will either vote in the future to increase taxes or find some other way to bring them back. If not enough people miss them to do that, then maybe they are programs we can live without.

[Shaman97]

The reason the budget problem is not being resolved is that there is a 2/3 requirement to raise taxes....

 

The way to solve the budget problem is to quickly produce a budget that will spend no more than is projected to come in, and let the chips fall where they may. If the programs that fall are important enough, people will miss them and will either vote in the future to increase taxes or find some other way to bring them back. If not enough people miss them to do that, then maybe they are programs we can live without.

 

There's also a 2/3 requirement to even pass a budget, which depending on the point of view is a good or bad thing. It makes it difficult to get the number of votes needed from the minority party to cross over to the majority's points of view.

 

I've come to the decision that after raising our taxes a few months ago, the last thing we or this economy needs is to raise them again, so let's do exactly what Dave recommends in getting a budget passed quickly that is balanced without any more tax increases. Let the chips fall where they may, then start over. The trick is being ballsy enough to cut out the special interests' interests.

 

A few months ago I was a strong proponent of voting out every incumbent in the Legislature, and in my heart, that's what I'd like to see done. However, the special interests would then have an even more free hand at re-writing the budget for their constituents members.

 

After we deal with the big three budget items (Health & Human Services, Prisons, and Education) the budget issues are relatively easy to address.

 

In the meantime, our schools will falter further, the parks will close, and my fishing license will become more expensive (it's over $50 now!)

 

At least I'll feel better knowing that prisoners and illegal aliens will still continue to receive the fine care they've received in the past.

[Quinn]

What additional services does California get for its higher tax rate? Surely it's more than just a mecca for illegals and the poor to suck at the teet of government largess.

 

I would imagine that poorer states (West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, etc.) would have a higher percentage on the public dole than California.

 

 

[David]

More regulation, higher ed, public transit, business requirements, and large cities.

[sgendler]

There is another issue here, that isn't being addressed. We've got 50 states all suffering budget crises to varying degrees as a result of property value declines and high unemployment. For the keynesians among us, this means that even while the federal govt is spending in order to stimulate the economy, we've got 50 states acting like Herbert Hoover (Krugman's comparison, not mine) and reacting to the economic crisis by shutting down spending wherever they can, making the problem worse as even more people are laid off and more projects are cancelled.

 

One doesn't even need to go back a full decade to now see 2 huge boom and bust cycles in California's budgetary history. If that isn't evidence enough that we need to use boom years to save money for the lean times, then I don't know what is. Instead, whenever things are booming, spending spirals up, but when times get tough, it is impossible to cut the spending back. If we were forced to actually sock away a certain amount of cash so that the inevitable downturns wouldn't catch us so far off guard, that would be a good thing. We require banks to have a certain level of cash reserve. Why shouldn't we have similar requirements of the state govt. There's just no good reason why a temporary decline in revenues ought to put the state so quickly up against the wall.

 

At the same time, a sudden shutdown of all state spending is really going to make things worse. I was at a BBQ last night with a bunch of guys that sell networking hardware for Cisco Systems into local govt - la county, the school district, and all of the various police departments. They had $5 million in contracts go away on Thursday and it was 100% attributable to the budget crisis. 1 member of the sales engineering team will be let go on Monday, with more to follow if this kind of thing continues. These were contracts that had been in the works for months. That is surely happening all over the state and in a huge cross section of industries. It is crazy to allow this to happen even while the feds have hundreds of billions in money allocated for stimulus that has yet to be spent.

[russell_bynum]

It is crazy to allow this to happen even while the feds have hundreds of billions in money allocated for stimulus that has yet to be spent.

 

Expect a bunch more of that "stimulus" money to show up in 2010 and 2012.....say.....just before November.

[doc47]

When governor Schwarzy Schwartz says that the SIX BILLION DOLLARS($6,000,000,000)per year that is spent on illegal aliens is not so much the problem, then perhaps he doesn't know what a problem looks like. Perhaps he can talk to the Governor of Indiana and learn how to get his state bank account into the black instead of the red.

Being a Conservative sometimes means that you conserve the resources you have rather than being Liberal with other peoples money, and when you run out of money.....you quit spending. It is better still if you stop spending before you go broke and bankrupt youe state and it's constituants.

 

My 2 cents.

 

No argument with REAL fiscal conservatism. Seems the politicians who call themselves conservative are conservative in spending on the people but liberal giving tax breaks to the rich, contracts to their corporate supporters and cronies, and digging us into the deepest fiscal crisis we've ever had.

(And don't blame it all on 9/11...)

[Matts_12GS]

No argument with REAL fiscal conservatism. Seems the politicians who call themselves conservative are conservative in spending on the people but liberal giving tax breaks to the rich, contracts to their corporate supporters and cronies, and digging us into the deepest fiscal crisis we've ever had.

(And don't blame it all on 9/11...)

 

Yeah, if only that spending could limited to those constitutionally defined powers and practice social conservatism as well as fiscal conservatism....