I think, if our federal government has the "disposable income" to afford to pay for an extra-constitutional drug war, it has the "disposable income" to eliminate official poverty in our republic as a form of providing for the general welfare.

In the local rag, there was a blurb about some group that is demanding the number of police officers by a few hundred, to get the ratio up over 2:1,000 citizens (which they feel is some sort of significant mark). At over $100K apiece for salary and equipment, etc., this would cost roughly $40 million. The city's budget is in the red by several millions, and the state is facing a $1.3 billion shortfall.

Just pointing out a concrete example of the taxpayers constantly wanting something for nothing, and being unwilling to actually pay for it. I still see it all as a supply/demand issue. If California is facing an $8B loss, the citizens need to learn to accept severe cutbacks in services: no road or infrastructure repair, less police or fire protections, etc. Anyone wanna take odds on how loud the howling would be then? People consider themselves owed and entitled to what they consider certain levels of government services. Woe to any who would dare decrease them.

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Government's proper role should be that of an impartial referee, maintaining a fair and competitive playing field, with basic, tough regulations so capitalism can work best. Sure, everyone loves to hate the refs, but an NFL game would be a disaster if the players themselves were in charge of self-regulation.

well the law enforcement issue is a tough one but here are some interesting blurbs I culled from the Vallejo situation, a municipality that has filed for bankruptcy- and this is not at all uncommon in many other munip. here is CA and around the country.

After 911 everyone wanted in on the deal, the DC distributes money for homeland security deal. many states were granted blocks of cahs, they then distributed it downward KNOWING that these were grants , not line items in the DC or sate budgets for ongoing funding ( as we could afford it anyway).

Citys like Vallejo San Francisco et al went out and got th best, they raised police salaries by over 20% or more to attract the best to their ears cities etc. same for fireman. They bought expensive equipment etc. great right?
I mean we certainly know that Vallejo and San fran are tops on the AQ hit list.

In any event what this did was inflate the pay scales and then, when the MONEY RAN OUT on these grants they were stuck paying for the funding on their own, a police officer in Vallejo makes 80k staring a year, fireman same, now we are 4-5 years down the road, 4-55 raises every year etc etc you get the picture.

And here wee are, the bar has been raised, when you say hey we have to let officers go there’s an uproar, we canot renegotiate their pay because they have unions........

So now what? Anyone see a corollary with the stimulus package? You bet, we are getting grants to raise levels and funding of services and the money will run out. And guess how gets whacked? Joe six pack that’s who. And the states aren’t waiting, they are already raising taxes....this is a clear of example of the same effect of the same mechanism applied 7 years ago, do we ever ever learn?

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Why can we still afford a drug war?

First official post in this forum, and this is a great topic.

Its really sad the state of the economy in california, a state with so much potential. But really, you must blame the politicians. Only through frugal spending can we actually succeed in this nation! Its absolutely ridiculous that states with such promise and economic base can actually be this far down the hole. The whole system is broken!

I personally live in michigan, and dont even get me started on recessions. We have been in one for 10 years now, and its not looking any better. Why? Politicians who spend spend spend and get out of control.

Its starts at the local level, and I am trying to get people rallied around this idea. I live in lansing, michigan, and I support this guy:

Virg Bernero Announces Re-Election Bid for Lansing Mayor

I'm not that familiar with California politics, but its a shame to see whats happening out there.

~Smity

You are absolutely correct when you say that it starts at the local level, but we compound the problem when we reward those who have demonstrated their incompetence locally with promotion to a higher office. That is largely because people do not get involved in local party activities--and a few active individuals are able to control the process through which candidates are selected.

What do you think of the concept of eliminating official poverty as an opportunity cost? If money is spent on eliminating official poverty, less money will be available for boondoggles such as the drug and terror wars.

anyway..

I enjoyed this article, despite the overall message and yes I most definitely will be voting in 3 weeks as to the props….I came here in 1992, I won’t bother to catalogue the changes I have seen, but they have been substantial and I agree that as a microcosm our issues here can be, if anyone is paying attention, instructive.




California as Liberalism's Laboratory
By George Will

WASHINGTON -- California's increasingly severe and largely self-inflicted economic crisis will deepen on May 19 if, as is probable and desirable, voters reject most of the ballot measures that were drafted as part of a "solution" to the state's budget deficit. They would make matters worse. National economic revival is being impeded because one-eighth of the nation's population lives in a state that is driving itself into permanent stagnation. California's perennial boast -- that it is the incubator of America's future -- now has an increasingly dark urgency.

Under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best governor the states contiguous to California have ever had, people and businesses have been relocating in those states. For four consecutive years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in. California's business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state's. In the last decade, net out-migration of Americans has been 1.4 million. California is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty. The latter is not California's fault; the former is.

If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.

Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues -- high income tax rates on the wealthy. In 2006, the top 1 percent of earners paid 48 percent of the income taxes. California's income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest, its business conditions among the worst, as measured by 16 variables directly influenced by the Legislature. Unemployment, the nation's fourth highest, is 11.2 percent.

Required by law to balance the budget, the Legislature has "solved" the problem by, among other things, increasing the income, sales, gas and vehicle taxes. This, although one rationale for the federal government's gargantuan "stimulus" was to spare states the need to raise taxes which, in California, will more than vitiate the stimulus.

Proposition 1A would create a complicated -- hence probably porous -- spending cap, and a rainy day fund. Realists, however, do not trust the Legislature to obey the law, which may be why some public employees unions cynically support 1A. Another May 19 proposition, opaquely titled the "Lottery Modernization Act," would authorize borrowing $5 billion from future hypothetical lottery receipts. The title is a measure of the political class' meretriciousness.

If voters pass 1A's hypothetical restraint on government spending, their reward will be two extra years (another $16 billion) of actual income, sales and vehicle tax increases. The increases were supposed to be for just two years. Voters are being warned that if they reject the propositions, there might have to be $14 billion in spending cuts. (Note the $15 billion number four paragraphs above.) Even teachers might be laid off. California teachers -- the nation's highest paid, with salaries about 25 percent above the national average -- are emblematic of the grip government employees unions have on the state, where 57 percent of government workers are unionized (the national average is 37 percent).

Flinching from serious budget cutting, and from confronting public employees unions, some Californians focus on process questions. They devise candidate-selection rules designed to diminish the role of parties, thereby supposedly making more likely the election of "moderates" amenable to even more tax increases.

But what actually ails California is centrist evasions. The state's crisis has been caused by "moderation," understood as splitting the difference between extreme liberalism and hyperliberalism, a "reasonableness" that merely moderates the speed at which the ever-expanding public sector suffocates the private sector.

California has become liberalism's laboratory, in which the case for fiscal conservatism is being confirmed. The state is a slow learner and hence will remain a drag on the nation's economy. But it will be a net benefit to the nation if the federal government and other state governments profit from California's negative example, which Californians can make more vividly instructive by voting down the propositions on May 19.

Remember the story of the mule that paid attention only after being walloped by a two-by-four? The Democratic-controlled state Legislature is like that. Fortunately, it has handed voters some two-by-fours -- the initiatives. Resounding rejections of them should get Sacramento's attention.



RealClearPolitics - California as Liberalism's Laboratory






































RealClearPolitics - California as Liberalism's Laboratory

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

The point that caught my eye was state spending in relation to inflation rate plus population and the amount of surplus California would have had and the dollar amount of cuts that have or should be made now. Maybe government spending can be good if prudently handled like this example shows? Or am I missing something?

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A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people. - Will Rogers

Register Independent! A pox on both their houses!

I think we should abolish the drug war before any cuts in social spending.

And I think that and every spending program should be judged entirely on its own merits, and not in relation to other spending.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

What if the drug war is also considered a form of "social spending" that could be cut because it is less effective than welfare, as we currently know it?

well, it looks like they have another ooopsey...they again, estimated their tax receipts wrong..by another 2.5 billion...what a joke this state has become. This used to be the place to come, now it’s the place to leave, unreal. Of course they counted the gold they would gain by jacking all of our taxes, and guess what? People aren't spending, bus. Is in the dumps and are having trouble paying their taxes...no shit??????

And you can bet your ass I am voting against any of these bullshit props, its time to end this crap.



Sales taxes may fall short of already gloomy forecasts

The state may get more bad fiscal news this week when the state controller makes his final tally of April sales taxes.

It's no secret that the recession is taking a toll on the state's thinning coffers, but more troubling is that revenue is coming in slower than pessimistic forecasts.

April, the state's largest tax-collection month, has fallen short of expected revenue by more than $1.8 billion in personal and corporate income taxes. The state was $750 million behind projected tax collection on April 1.

There's good reason to believe April's sales tax receipts may disappoint, too. New car sales the first three months of this year fell by 43 percent compared with the same period last year, according a report last week by the California New Car Dealers Association.

Auto-related sales tax (car sales, parts, etc.) make up about 20 percent of the state's sales tax receipts, said Paul Warren, a revenue and taxation analyst for the Legislative Analyst's Office.

That adds to what should be another huge budget deficit for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature to wrangle over this summer.

California's tax receipts so far are about $2.5 billion behind projections for the current fiscal year and the Legislative Analyst's Office forecast a revenue shortfall of $8 billion next year.

If voters reject Proposition 1C (borrowing against future state lottery sales) along with 1D and 1E (shifting taxes for children and mental health programs to other uses), the state would be short another $6 billion.

Sales taxes may fall short of already gloomy forecasts

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

I think we should legalize drugs before we play a "shell" game with funds from other programs, since it could be perceived as a form of complicity and approval of "Enron" type of accounting practices.

How about this:

We increase social spending. Take all drug addicts and put them into forced rehab. Those that buy and sell such drugs, place them into prisons where they belong.

Then we can end the "war on drugs". And the money saved can help people that really need it, not those that simply want to get high.