I sat in on a 2 hour
webcast today of a rare convening of both houses of our Legislature in
a joint session to discuss what passes for a budget on the left coast. As Harold Hill might say
- we got trouble, right here in Californee, that starts with T and it
rhymes with B and that stands for budget. Holy Moly, what a
train wreck.
Led by our newly elevated Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, the meeting consisted of an hours worth of presentations followed by an hours worth of Q & A. In a somewhat frightening spectacle, my screen froze during her opening remarks so I had this image of speaker Bass, who is possessed of a rather large round noggin, frozen in a rictus of an entirely inappropriate ear-to-ear grin while discussing the havoc this crisis will wreak on our fair state. It was like being confronted by a lunatic Halloween pumpkin grinning wildly at my imminent demise. Freaky. Thankfully my screen got buffered in time to see the rest of the proceedings in their appropriately somber mein, although our State Treasurer, Bill Lockyer, did mix some metaphors about nursery rhymes in his segment that was a little odd too.
Speakers included our State Budget Analyst Mac Taylor, Director of the California Department of Finance Michael Genest, State Controller John Chiang and the aforementioned Treasurer Bill Lockyer. Right off the bat I'm seeing one potential problem - too damn many cooks in the kitchen. I don't know what all these guys do but they all seem to be doing the same thing and were issuing the same warnings about the same money that isn't there. Do we really need all four of them? Couldn't one guy and one department take care of all the money? Maybe that way he'd know what's going on and what checks he'd already written and when we're out of money and can't spend any more. I know if my wife and I both write checks out of the same account without talking to each other, it can get ugly. That's why I get a couple bucks a week and she's got the check book. It seems to work better that way and we're not $11 Billion in the hole like California.
Mac Taylor started by outlining the options - none of which are pretty. To raise the revenue needed to head off a state BK in March, we could raise sales tax by $.02, which will make us the highest in the country. Plus we'll need to add a 15% surcharge to our personal income taxes - which will make us the highest in the country. We'll also need to raise corporate tax rates by 2% which will make us... yeah, I know. When asked by my Assembly Member Kevin Jeffries if all these taxes weren't actually counter productive to stimulate spending, aid businesses and grow jobs, he admitted they were in fact counter-productive but still necessary. Every tax increase will result in some job or personal losses, they just need to be 'judicious' in their application to weigh where they get the most bang-for-their-buck for the least negative impact. Oooooh. I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy with that kind of talk, Mac.
IF we do that IMMEDIATELY, we stand to only be about $2.4 billion in the tank this year and only about $4.5 billion in the tank next year. If we don't act IMMEDIATELY, we'll be in the crapper to the tune of at least $9.2 Billion this year and as much as $25 Billion next. And he reminded us that that's the BEST CASE scenario - it will likely get worse. In fact the next speaker, Mr. Genest, told us no fewer than 18 times that 'IT WILL GET WORSE'. By next week the numbers he was quoting today will be off by $2 Billion. And it will get worse. It will get worse. It will get worse. 14 more times, it will get worse. The last time I heard that it will get worse unless we do something immediately, it cost me $700 Billion that I still don't know where the hell it's gone - but it is getting worse.
To avoid that we not only need to raise taxes to the highest level in the country, but we need to cut essential personnel and services. Never mind that Democrats said they were cut to the bone last year. They cut them to the bone again earlier this year and then cut them even bonier a couple weeks ago and now they need to cut them bones even more. Why do I get the feeling their bones are a lot meatier than mine to begin with? I think there's a lot more fat and sinew and gristle than they're telling us about. In fact there was quite a lot of the fat in evidence wandering around the floor of the Assembly today. They just don't know where to look.
When questioned by Members if they were just crying wolf again, since this is the ### time we've had a budget crisis in as many years, the response was that no, this one is the real wolf. In the past there has been a wolf but he was way down the sidewalk. We could borrow a little money from some overfunded state department, throw it at the wolf and he'd go away for awhile. Then he'd come back and we'd borrow some money from the Feds and throw it at the wolf and he'd go away. Then he'd come back and we'd get lucky with a dot.com boom or a real estate boom and get some money to throw at the wolf and he'd go away.
Apparently this time the wolf is right up to our door. We've begged, borrowed or stolen everything we can from our own departments, the Feds don't have any more money to give away (except to banks, auto dealers, insurance companies, etc), we can't sell bonds, there's no windfalls in sight, unemployment payments are skyrocketing, housing tax revenues are plummeting - well, it's just all good news in Sacramento. The wolf is ringing the doorbell and we're cowering behind the curtains.
Fortunately they managed to end right on time at 5:00 as several of the members had dinner engagements or parties to attend. After all, messing with other peoples money is hard work and makes one thirsty. They need to keep their energy up for the marathon BS session bound to take place over the next few days/weeks/months. I have no idea what they'll finally decide (neither do they) but I do know one thing - regardless of what they do, it's going to cost ME more. That's a given. Everything else is on the table for debate.
Well, that's my opinion - I could be wrong.
Led by our newly elevated Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, the meeting consisted of an hours worth of presentations followed by an hours worth of Q & A. In a somewhat frightening spectacle, my screen froze during her opening remarks so I had this image of speaker Bass, who is possessed of a rather large round noggin, frozen in a rictus of an entirely inappropriate ear-to-ear grin while discussing the havoc this crisis will wreak on our fair state. It was like being confronted by a lunatic Halloween pumpkin grinning wildly at my imminent demise. Freaky. Thankfully my screen got buffered in time to see the rest of the proceedings in their appropriately somber mein, although our State Treasurer, Bill Lockyer, did mix some metaphors about nursery rhymes in his segment that was a little odd too.
Speakers included our State Budget Analyst Mac Taylor, Director of the California Department of Finance Michael Genest, State Controller John Chiang and the aforementioned Treasurer Bill Lockyer. Right off the bat I'm seeing one potential problem - too damn many cooks in the kitchen. I don't know what all these guys do but they all seem to be doing the same thing and were issuing the same warnings about the same money that isn't there. Do we really need all four of them? Couldn't one guy and one department take care of all the money? Maybe that way he'd know what's going on and what checks he'd already written and when we're out of money and can't spend any more. I know if my wife and I both write checks out of the same account without talking to each other, it can get ugly. That's why I get a couple bucks a week and she's got the check book. It seems to work better that way and we're not $11 Billion in the hole like California.
Mac Taylor started by outlining the options - none of which are pretty. To raise the revenue needed to head off a state BK in March, we could raise sales tax by $.02, which will make us the highest in the country. Plus we'll need to add a 15% surcharge to our personal income taxes - which will make us the highest in the country. We'll also need to raise corporate tax rates by 2% which will make us... yeah, I know. When asked by my Assembly Member Kevin Jeffries if all these taxes weren't actually counter productive to stimulate spending, aid businesses and grow jobs, he admitted they were in fact counter-productive but still necessary. Every tax increase will result in some job or personal losses, they just need to be 'judicious' in their application to weigh where they get the most bang-for-their-buck for the least negative impact. Oooooh. I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy with that kind of talk, Mac.
IF we do that IMMEDIATELY, we stand to only be about $2.4 billion in the tank this year and only about $4.5 billion in the tank next year. If we don't act IMMEDIATELY, we'll be in the crapper to the tune of at least $9.2 Billion this year and as much as $25 Billion next. And he reminded us that that's the BEST CASE scenario - it will likely get worse. In fact the next speaker, Mr. Genest, told us no fewer than 18 times that 'IT WILL GET WORSE'. By next week the numbers he was quoting today will be off by $2 Billion. And it will get worse. It will get worse. It will get worse. 14 more times, it will get worse. The last time I heard that it will get worse unless we do something immediately, it cost me $700 Billion that I still don't know where the hell it's gone - but it is getting worse.
To avoid that we not only need to raise taxes to the highest level in the country, but we need to cut essential personnel and services. Never mind that Democrats said they were cut to the bone last year. They cut them to the bone again earlier this year and then cut them even bonier a couple weeks ago and now they need to cut them bones even more. Why do I get the feeling their bones are a lot meatier than mine to begin with? I think there's a lot more fat and sinew and gristle than they're telling us about. In fact there was quite a lot of the fat in evidence wandering around the floor of the Assembly today. They just don't know where to look.
When questioned by Members if they were just crying wolf again, since this is the ### time we've had a budget crisis in as many years, the response was that no, this one is the real wolf. In the past there has been a wolf but he was way down the sidewalk. We could borrow a little money from some overfunded state department, throw it at the wolf and he'd go away for awhile. Then he'd come back and we'd borrow some money from the Feds and throw it at the wolf and he'd go away. Then he'd come back and we'd get lucky with a dot.com boom or a real estate boom and get some money to throw at the wolf and he'd go away.
Apparently this time the wolf is right up to our door. We've begged, borrowed or stolen everything we can from our own departments, the Feds don't have any more money to give away (except to banks, auto dealers, insurance companies, etc), we can't sell bonds, there's no windfalls in sight, unemployment payments are skyrocketing, housing tax revenues are plummeting - well, it's just all good news in Sacramento. The wolf is ringing the doorbell and we're cowering behind the curtains.
Fortunately they managed to end right on time at 5:00 as several of the members had dinner engagements or parties to attend. After all, messing with other peoples money is hard work and makes one thirsty. They need to keep their energy up for the marathon BS session bound to take place over the next few days/weeks/months. I have no idea what they'll finally decide (neither do they) but I do know one thing - regardless of what they do, it's going to cost ME more. That's a given. Everything else is on the table for debate.
Well, that's my opinion - I could be wrong.
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