[Y]ears of irresponsibility by politicians and voters alike have left California with ongoing spending obligations that are nearly 50 percent higher than its ongoing revenues – roughly $110 billion a year in the former and $75 billion in the latter – and debts that would be daunting even were the economy to improve dramatically.It adds up, according to the state legislature's own budget analyst totals up to $200 billion in liabilities. Why Meg Whitman or any rational person would want to be governor of this state is beyond me. Their problems are long term and there is no indication that there is the sort of political will necessary to address these deeply embedded problems.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators have narrowed the structural budget gap in the short run with temporary taxes, temporary spending cuts, up-front and backdoor loans, projected asset sales, bookkeeping tricks and raids on local governments, but will probably see major deficits appear again soon.
The debts – many billions borrowed to keep the state afloat, spending deferrals that must be honored later, bonds issued to finance public works, and unfunded liabilities in public worker pensions and health care – are continuing to pile up.
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009
California's problems won't go away any time soon
Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters writes about how California's new budget is so full of gimmicks that their budgetary woes will soon be returning.
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It should be noted that Walter's paper, the Sacramento Bee, has endorsed over 90% of the spending and bond measures before the citizens and the other writer who covers California politics, George Skelton, writes for the LA Times which has endorsed about the same number of referndums and initiatives.
Yet both writers continue to blame the selfish citizens for voting for these bills and then not giving the legislature carte blanche to raise the money to pay for them. Now that they have a populist backlash on their hands they are racing to get to the head of the crowd but not actually on the rail with tar and feather adornments.
At some point during the rest of Obama's term, California will come to the federal government for a bailout.
And I'm betting they get it. It has too many electoral votes to fail.
Then, over the subsequent ten years or so, each and every other hugely-blue state will make a similar pitch, and will be successful.
And that will be the capstone of Obama's homage to Mayor Daley and his City - from a "stimulus" that really only stimulated the wallets and election campaigns of Democrat supporters, to the gift of GM to his beholden unions, to a globalcarbonning bill that will primarily work to transfer money from private hands to the public weal, he has consistently and constantly worked since Day One to reward his friends and to punish his enemies.
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