Burned Alphabet Soup - The Death Of California

Yup, here I am again, yacking about politics - I made the mistake of buying a newspaper and thus lost my blissful ignorance of the many ways those idiots in Sacramento are killing my state. I had to brush the mental cobwebs off my various degrees in economics - (I really only have two) and start running certain "budget remedying proposals" through my rusty econ brain.

I have to wonder whether anybody up there in Sacramento ever attended a class in economics. In case they have not, I thought I would offer up a neat little equation they may have missed.

It goes like this:

GDP = C + I + G

It says our Gross Domestic Product is the sum of how much consumers spend (C) plus how much is invested (I -like when a business builds a new factory) plus whatever the government spends (G).

When C, I and G get bigger, GDP gets bigger and we hear on the radio that the economy has grown. Whoopee we think.

Sometimes one of them gets bigger and one of them gets smaller - or two get bigger and one gets smaller, or two get smaller and one gets bigger or they all get bigger - in any of those combinations, we can still get happy news on the radio that our economy is growing. (As long as whichever one(s) get bigger do so by more than the other(s) got smaller.)

There is one combination of C+I+G though, that is unambiguously bad. That is when C, I and G all get smaller. That is the opposite of growth. That is shrinkage. We also call that a recession.

Wise government types - or at least those who want to get re-elected, will try not to cause any more shrinkage in either C, I or G. Indeed, many will expouse the virtues of deficit spending to help "kick-start" the economy or of cutting taxes to help "kick-start" the economy.

Notice I said deficit spending and not just spending. Deficit spending implies you spend more than you bring in - Gov. Terminator is a big fan of this. Deficit spending makes our equation look like this:

Before deficit spending:

GDP = C + I + G

After deficit spending:

GDP = C + I + G

G grows, C and I stay the same - economy grows.

If the government raises taxes, then C and I get smaller but G grows - and then everybody argues about whether G grows by enough to offset the now smaller C and I. Although it doesn't and cutting taxes would make C+I grow more than G shrinks

So, our state government here in California has put together a budget that both slashes spending and raises taxes. Meaning all three of our letters get smaller!

Like this:

gdp = c+i+g

Do you want to live in that economy? Note that this is on top of everything that is happening due to the financial mess. Our only option is to cut taxes by more than we cut spending. Or we are going to be in big, big trouble.

RH

California Budget Scam - Pay Up Carlos Slim - And Ban The Teacher's Union!

Mea Culpa. I must confess I voted for Schwarzenegger. I heard on the radio that he is talking about cutting programs like CalWorks and medical assistance to the disabled. This makes me so angry I want to personally run him out of the state.

Of all the cynical, low, disgusting scare tactics I have heard, this takes the cake. The CalWorks program, for example, is an assistance program that is only available to US citizens. It also rewards those who work but still can't make ends meet.

CalWorks has a budget of about $1.2 billion. That money goes to US citizens. I don't mind paying for that. Compare that to the entire Dept. of Health and Human Services budget of $29,800,607,000. That's almost $30 billion. As anybody knows who has had to visit an emergency room in California, there are no such protections for the remainder of the spending. We are being bankrupted by Mexico.

California's biggest expense, however, is the K-12 education system. We spent $41,144,462,000 - that's BILLION on K-12 education or the so-called public school system. It is a garbage system. How many of Mexico's children are California taxpayers paying to educate? How long are we going to tolerate being taken to the cleaners? You do realize that there is a point where California just can't afford it any more - no matter how many of those stupid teachers "protest" being laid off. There is a point of no return where California just becomes Mexico. I think we are at that point.

Although I have lived here all my life, I am now, for the first time, considering leaving California. I know plenty of people who have already done so - people who paid more into the system than they took out.

We were invaded while we slept - and now I think it might be too late for California. If the Federal Government passes an amnesty, we are lost.

To fix this, we must

1. Abolish the teachers' union; remove it completely from our school system. Their main goal is to grab money and power - not educate children. They are working a numbers racket - the more children - domestic or imported - the more money they are able to steal. They use that money to buy politicians. We must demand that only NON-UNION teachers and adminstrators be employed by public schools.
   
   
2. Come down hard on businesses who employ illegal aliens. Huge fines and jail time. Why should California taxpayers subsidize sleaze-bag "businesses"? - if they can't make a profit without breaking the law, I DON'T CARE!
   
   
3. Continue to provide emergency services and medical care as we currently do, with the exception that we will determine the patient's country of citizenship or legal residency, and then present that country's governenment with the bill - which can either be paid or subtracted from any aid our government gives them. OR, Better yet, they can impose a special "Billionaire tax" (Was it 12 billionaires for Mexico???) on their own citizens to come up with the money. Why are we penalizing rich and successful Californians when these scumbags get off scott free?

If you notice, my suggestions do not include letting poor, immigrant Mexicans die in the street, or ripping their children out of the classroom. They are just as much victims of circumstance as are the citizens of California. The reason the situation in this state has come to this is not because poor Mexicans come stateside. The reason is because certain people are getting filthy rich, and others are getting filthy powerful and benefit greatly when poor Mexicans come stateside. This is not going to change until we remove the incentives and take away their power.

Open your eyes! Abolish the teacher's union and hold Mexico accountable!

RH

No New Taxes, California

I do not want my taxes raised. Do not compromise, Republicans - hold firm.

It is insanity to even think that we can find a solution to the budget crisis before we have had an open discussion on where all the money has gone and is going. Nobody has stopped to consider the fact that this state should have plenty of money - even with the real estate bust, property taxes are sky high. - We don't build roads, there is no mass transport, we have nothing to show for any of the money.

I suspect that the current crisis is a direct result of illegal immigration. It is not possible to solve this crisis without finding out how many illegal immigrants are actually in this state and how much they are costing taxpayers. - I would guess 8-10 million alone in California.

There are schools where I live that are in all likelihood attended only by children who should not be here in the first place. I didn't mind it when the government was only paying for a few extra students and providing basic medical services for the migrant workers - I thought it was the right thing to do. But we past that point 20 years ago. The 1986 amnesty was supposed to be the first and last - but it was really just the beginning.

The truth is, nobody really knows how many illegal aliens are in California because anytime anybody tries to count, they are branded racists be the Latino lobby and the idiotic politically correct crowd.

So they won't let us figure out where the money is going, but they want us to give them more.

Not with me. Cut school spending, cut, cut, cut. Cut Prisons, Cut health care. Slash and burn. I am not going to give you one penny more. No Way, No How.

RH