We Have a Budget Deal!
And it’s almost certainly a huge pile of [string of expletives deleted]!
A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that state lawmakers and the governor have reached a “framework of an agreement” on solving California’s longest-ever state budget impasse.
“The governor and the leaders have reached a framework of an agreement. We will continue to work through the details over the weekend and hope to come to a final agreement Monday when they reconvene,” said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear. He declined to provide any details.
Oh, I think I can provide the details. Without knowing any of them.
Kick the can down the road, by borrowing more money, and deferring the hard decisions until next year.
Sound about right?
Anyone frustrated enough to punch their computer screen right about now?
Colonel most happy
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/23/2010 @ 9:00 pmthat arnold schwarzenegger
cant say “I’ll be back”
Colonel just wish that
ColonelHaiku (1546ed) — 9/23/2010 @ 9:02 pmsame hold true for pathetic
Dem legislature
The budget is 85 days late so far but the real frosting on this crap cake will be the stunning arrogance displayed at the inevitable photo-op of self-congratulatory claps on the back for a job well done. Look what we’ve done for the people of California.
Dana (8ba2fb) — 9/23/2010 @ 9:12 pmSilly, Patrick. Don’t you know it is better for us to see what it entails after it becomes law?
Ed from SFV (44a863) — 9/23/2010 @ 9:13 pmThis has to be so frustrating to Californians who love their state but despair about the way the leaders handle the finances.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 9/23/2010 @ 9:29 pmMike Feuer recently said in my hearing that the only problem with passing a budget is the 2/3rds approval requirement: that if we would just let a simple majority of drunken sailors decide our budget, instead of a super majority, everything would be fine.
and yes, i think he’s a fing moron of the sort that has created this disaster.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 9/23/2010 @ 9:36 pm“Kick the can down the road, by borrowing more money, and deferring the hard decisions until next year.” – But but but I thought that was the definition of a California Budget Deal?
Adjoran (ec6a4b) — 9/23/2010 @ 11:04 pmThis has to be so frustrating to Californians who love their state but despair about the way the leaders handle the finances.
True, DRJ, but at the same time we had better come to grips with the fact that we are the ones who elect and reelect these clowns. I try to be optimistic, but I am really starting to be convinced that nothing will change until we go into a full-blown crisis where we can no longer be extended credit and have to declare bankruptcy. As the nation’s largest state, California’s problems will impact the rest of the country, like it or not.
JVW (eccfd6) — 9/23/2010 @ 11:35 pmJVW: We may be the voters, but the gerrymander corrupts the process. If the districts were drawn by disinterested parties, we would have many more competitive elections, more centrist candidates, and a legislature that was not owned and operated by the public employee unions.
Even under the most optimistic scenario — which obviously includes a Whitman victory in November — nothing will substantively change until 2012, when the new reapportionment procedure actually kicks in.
All things considered, your description of the future is the likely endgame. I cannot even begin to imagine the upheaval that would occur if bankruptcy were to be declared in order to void the union contracts and pension obligations. (We’ll get a preview of this as cities start going into bankruptcy in the next couple of years.)
Unless a far-left federal administration “solves” California’s problem by writing a big check (which only kicks the problem down the road again), your prediction of a financial crisis is not an “If” question, but a “When” question.
What I find particularly frustrating is that the California constitution expressly forbids deficit spending without the approval of the voters. But somehow the legislature, via smoke and mirrors and deception and outright prevarication, has managed to wriggle out of that requirement for the past 12 years.
That being said, I’ve made my decision. We closed on a property in a well-run state last December, are furnishing it now, and as of January 1, 2011, my residence here will become my “winter vacation home”. After 34 years, it will be goodbye.
There is a quiet karma in that decision. As far as I’m concerend, the people that elected these idiots can be the ones who suffer the greatest pain when the excrement hits the fan.
Steve (d8b14d) — 9/24/2010 @ 12:31 amJVW: that is why part of me is tempted to vote Moonbeam back into office.
i know he’s an idiot, and i know he’ll make things worse, but i know too many people, natives AND transplants, who think he is the answer and that Meg is ebil….
to be fair, most of them are E-Bay users, and hate her for various reasons from there, but that’s just another indicator of just how st00pid the population has become here.
of course, if it would bring back Linda Ronstadt in her Boy Scout uniform days, it might almost be worth it….
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 9/24/2010 @ 12:35 amWe had a simmiliar situation here in New Zealand in 1990.
Fortunately, a new government had just been elected with a majority of 67 in a house of 97 (heh) and a few key members with balls.
They slashed benefits across the board, generating huge protests and kneecapped unions. Within a few years the budget was balanced, and we ran a surplus until recently when the outgoing finance minister suddenly splurged on expensive programs in order to try and win the election.
It takes balls though. I’m amazed even now that we managed to do it, the political fallout really only settled down last year when they got voted back in again.
scrubone (9b19ae) — 9/24/2010 @ 2:10 amshe wear scout uni
BlueHaiku (a8053b) — 9/24/2010 @ 2:28 amtoday, make men ‘switch sides’, if
you know what I mean
We have to pass the budget in order to see what is in it.
Really.
Throw them all out. And if their replacements don’t fix the problem, throw them out too.
tyree (cf6f25) — 9/24/2010 @ 4:25 amI’m sorry, but what is “a framework of an agreement?” Sort of reminds me of the diplomatic gobbledygook, we “agree in principle.”
But 85 days? That’s nothing! In the Keystone State, we went half a year without a budget a couple of years ago.
The Dana in Pennsylvania (3e4784) — 9/24/2010 @ 6:45 amCalifornia is just following Pelosi’s lead, or vice versa.
JD (4a3b1f) — 9/24/2010 @ 6:49 amYou think it’s bad there, we just had a big – time assembly of deep thinkers (read: Dem political hacks) who put forward their argument that the only way out of the budget mess in IL is…to raise taxes. No mention of reform of entitlement spending, pension adjustments, or any gov’t employees actually contributing a scintilla of a cent to their healthcare plans. To top it all off, some Krugman – looking economist came on to proclaim that if you don’t raise taxes, all of those poor unfortunate gov’t employees will lose their jobs, thereby dooming the economy even further. I laughed out loud at that one, but stopped laughing when I realized that our local MFM didn’t question any of them on these assumptions. We are well and truly screwed.
Dmac (d61c0d) — 9/24/2010 @ 8:00 amThey’re in Santa Monica, so they needed to rest after all that “hammering out” and enjoy themselves for the weekend at Shutters and Spago’s.
Patricia (9c62d9) — 9/24/2010 @ 8:39 amPatricia wrote:
[slapping forehead] Well, of course they do! I should have known. 🙂
The Dana a bit slow on the uptake (3e4784) — 9/24/2010 @ 9:02 amGreetings:
In order to tamp down any sense of optimism resulting from this report, please let me submit the following:
I live in the San Francisco Bay area. Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor, is running a radio ad in which she initially announces that California’s state university system has six of the top ten public schools in the nation. She then goes on to say that if she is elected, she will cut “welfare” spending (something she cannot do without the cooperation of the legislature) and transfer the “savings” to the university system. Ta-dah.
Now, it seems to my Jesuit influenced brain that, while $20 billion in debt, Ms. Whitman wants to take any savings from welfare and, instead of paying down that debt or putting the money in the bank for a rainy day, transfer those funds to a part of the state government that she seems to think is doing pretty well.
I don’t know if this is the governmental equivalent of Silicon Valley’s “burn rate”, but it makes me think that the can getting kicked down the road is labeled Whitman’s Lager.
11B40 (da248d) — 9/24/2010 @ 9:52 amIt’s either:
1) A massive tax increase;
2) Massive Cuts;
3) A massive lie
I vote for #3.
orcadrvr (5daf3f) — 9/24/2010 @ 11:37 am11B40,
I agree it’s not the answer but CA is one state that does not now enforce work rules in welfare reform, so at least it’s a start. My friends who are fraud investigators will tell you that, yes, flakes know these rules and come to CA to take advangate of them, ensuring their sloth by moving to rural areas where they are in no danger of ever being offered a job.
OTOH Other states can look forward to having their flakes come home.
Patricia (9c62d9) — 9/24/2010 @ 11:48 amMy backside was aching last night. Now I know why.
East Bay Jay (2fd7f7) — 9/24/2010 @ 12:25 pmWas offered a job in Fresno. Turned it down. Am headin’ to Indiana.
KobeClan (39eaf5) — 9/24/2010 @ 5:23 pmSeems to be the “Last Garrison”.
Will try to leave the back gate open. Hurry!
Why do you all stay in that crazy place? If you have marketable skills you will succeed elsewhere.Get the hell out!!!!
highpockets (6ae071) — 9/24/2010 @ 6:09 pmHighpockets wrote:
Well, I did.
OK, OK, so I was seven years old when we moved away from the Pyrite State, but we still left! 🙂
The Dana who was born in Oakland and lived in Antioch (8a8a86) — 9/25/2010 @ 12:33 pm‘a’ framework
not ‘the’ framework, mind you
(mareea helps me to put da oil on my back because I cannot reach back deayah and dis has been da problem ever since ve came out to da collyforneah)
kommt der schwarzen egger (72b0ed) — 9/25/2010 @ 7:47 pmFYI…Under current law, States cannot, repeat, cannot declare bankruptcy; but…
they can be forced into receivership, where the legislature and governor have their power over spending stripped away.
A sitting Governor, and Legislative Member, who allows the State to enter receivership should be literally horse-whipped, tarred & feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.
AD-RtR/OS! (67bd3c) — 9/27/2010 @ 4:06 pmThen, the crowd should look closely at the Receiver just to make sure he has the taxpayer’s interests at heart, and doesn’t get too full of himself.
Highpockets,
Why do you all stay in that crazy place?
(1) my friends are here.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/27/2010 @ 4:13 pm(2) my husband’s family is here.
(3) it’s a stunningly beautiful place with a temperate climate.
(4) there are many parts of the country where being an openly gay man would be uncomfortable at best.
If the districts were drawn by disinterested parties, we would have many more competitive elections, more centrist candidates, and a legislature that was not owned and operated by the public employee unions.
I voted for Prop. 11 and will vote against Prop. 27, but I don’t think this is necessarily true.
We’ll see what the outcome is, but … the legislator for San Francisco is going to be no more moderate in 2013 than he is today.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/27/2010 @ 4:14 pmTrue.
Fortunately, it is about legislators from swing areas.
Michael Ejercito (249c90) — 9/27/2010 @ 5:08 pmRight, but even there, i think there’s a contradiction between the desire for geographically compact districts which respect communities of interest and districts with competitive elections.
We voted to mandate the former in the hope that we’d get the latter; I think many will be surprised by the result.
(That said, I voted for it, cause the current system is awful … and proposition 20, which would repeal it, has one of the silliest ideas i’ve ever seen in a proposition: a requirement that district sizes be precisely equal).
aphrael (9802d6) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:13 pmWhen will official census numbers start coming out?
JD (cc3aa7) — 9/27/2010 @ 7:18 pmFrustrated? No. Rolling on the floor laughing, Yes.
dk Allen (ae9db6) — 9/28/2010 @ 11:34 am