State Controller said what?

[DBCooper]

Shut the government down. Shut it down now.

[Wilbur]

yeah, who needs roads, water, sewer, police, a military.

Finally, a slogan that offers all the answers needed.

[DBCooper]

Thats horse hockey and you know it. When I worked at White Sands during the famous government shutdown in the 90's we operated at 400% efficiency with the lack of Nasa employees onsite. I think you will find that the state will survive as well. We need a paradigm shift in our financial arrangement. Democrats arent getting it done in state government as they werent getting it done in DC back in 94.

[Maximus]

Reducing the size of our state government is where we should be headed without looking back. Taxes are raised now because of out of control spending. Put another way, if we were balancing the budget, there would be no need for an increase in taxes.

I would advocate a more drastic and immediate reduction than you would Wilbur. And it is possible to do that.

Again, who pays the biggest price for our out of control spending? It's not the so-called rich.

[Wilbur]

Like I said, send your chop list to Villinnes. (sp?) He doesn't seem able to produce one. It's much easier to talk about than to do without committing political suicide or party heresy on both parties' part. The depth of the cuts required to pull it off really does eventually put grannies in walkers out in the streets or close prisons. State payroll is somewhere sub-20% of budget. Halve it - just pretend somehow everything keeps working - and you've only solved half or a third of the problem. It's all those CHECKS being written to school districts, counties, and social program recipients. Much of it untouchable money due to prop 58, a lot of matching funds money where if you cut a buck it costs you two, an awful lot of it spending the courts won't let you stop spending. We've only beginning to see the leading edge of what we're going to take in the ear from the federal courts over prisons. I personally suspect the State is praying for a court order mandating some prisoner releases, and sticking its chin out for it, so nobody in state government will be politically accountable.

But if you can identify fifteen billion in cuts which could actually be implemented, send them in.

[DBCooper]

For 45 of the last 49 years the Democrats have controlled the Assembly. Whos mess is this?

[Wilbur]

both parties play the masses for chumps while pimping themselves to their respective special interests. But there's no doubt the Dem ruling class in the Legislature are spendaholics who need an intervention.

I support the redistricting reform initiative, which while not a panacea will make it easier for moderates of both parties to survive and even thrive. There are not many people left under the Dome who can even pronounce the word compromise let alone perform it.

[Birdieman]

Originally Posted by Wilbur

We've only beginning to see the leading edge of what we're going to take in the ear from the federal courts over prisons. I personally suspect the State is praying for a court order mandating some prisoner releases, and sticking its chin out for it, so nobody in state government will be politically accountable.

Typical liberal response, don't punish the criminals, let them out early, it's cheaper. How about becoming tougher on crimes with harsher penalties as a deterrent? Can't do that though, that would be inhumane. Like I said before, what a flippin' joke.

[akulasquirrel]

Originally Posted by Maximus

Reducing the size of our state government is where we should be headed without looking back. Taxes are raised now because of out of control spending. Put another way, if we were balancing the budget, there would be no need for an increase in taxes.

I would advocate a more drastic and immediate reduction than you would Wilbur. And it is possible to do that.

Again, who pays the biggest price for our out of control spending? It's not the so-called rich.

Should the size of government be reduced? Absolutely. One small hindrance to that idea is that once a government program gets started, it's difficult to end it. The Politicians most likely see those programs basically as votes to keep them in office so they're loathe to chop them.

Originally Posted by Wilbur

Like I said, send your chop list to Villinnes. (sp?) He doesn't seem able to produce one. It's much easier to talk about than to do without committing political suicide or party heresy on both parties' part. The depth of the cuts required to pull it off really does eventually put grannies in walkers out in the streets or close prisons. State payroll is somewhere sub-20% of budget. Halve it - just pretend somehow everything keeps working - and you've only solved half or a third of the problem. It's all those CHECKS being written to school districts, counties, and social program recipients. Much of it untouchable money due to prop 58, a lot of matching funds money where if you cut a buck it costs you two, an awful lot of it spending the courts won't let you stop spending. We've only beginning to see the leading edge of what we're going to take in the ear from the federal courts over prisons. I personally suspect the State is praying for a court order mandating some prisoner releases, and sticking its chin out for it, so nobody in state government will be politically accountable.

But if you can identify fifteen billion in cuts which could actually be implemented, send them in.

Finding $15B in cuts that would not be political suicide for someone might be a bit difficult... Have at it! The legislature likely has been floating some tax hike ideas just to see if they'd be palatable and won't result in getting booted out of office this November...

Education spending in 2007-2008 budget ate up about 52% of the entire budget. Much of that money is untouchable due to Federal funding and a spending formula that basically mandates an increase in education spending every year. Trust me on this. The education folks know that formula and last year they had an absolute fit over their not getting as much money as the formula required... even though they were getting more money than they got in the previous year.

Originally Posted by Birdieman

Typical liberal response, don't punish the criminals, let them out early, it's cheaper. How about becoming tougher on crimes with harsher penalties as a deterrent? Can't do that though, that would be inhumane. Like I said before, what a flippin' joke.

The CDCR budget last year was only about 9.6% of the entire budget. IMHO, prison should be uncomfortable - to the point where you don't want to go back. Should it be inhumane? No. One reason why the CDCR budget is so large is that once you're incarcerated, the state must take care of your health. They spend millions on medical care for inmates, running tests and doing procedures that the rest of us might not get or be able to afford on our own, let alone with insurance. At least the CDCR tries to get the best rates for that stuff by contract... that they renegotiate every year or so. In a previous job, I did a LOT of medical transports, which took about 2 hours each way, to send inmates to a hospital that had the best rates - even after considering the bill for the 120 mile trip, paying the higher Paramedic rates. IIRC, that came up to about $2300 per trip and this was almost 10 years ago! I'm sure rates have gone up since.

Running the State Prison system (or for that matter, county jails) like the Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff's Office (Sheriff Joe Arpaio) would probably not exactly be very popular the the "Coddle the Prisoner" crowd.

Here's last year's budget:


Frightening isn't it?