No Heroes

While the minority of Republicans on the CA legislature are casting themselves as saviors of the people by refusing increases in any taxes, and Governor Schwarzenegger keeps trying to decide what his stance-of-the-week is going to be, California is about to run out of money. That could hurt a lot more people than some of the proposed taxes might, folks. The problem is that the deficit is so big that it is probably going to take some increased taxes, some increased fees, AND spending cuts to close the gap. Because $41.6 BILLION (projected deficit) is a lot of money!

I don't know about you, but the tactic I am most tired of seeing is that of borrowing more and more for the generations that follow ours to have to cope with. That's what seems most unfair. There are services we want and need but we don't want to pay our own way. That's because we were told we didn't have to: we can have low taxes AND increased government services! a miracle! just keep borrowing...  (but with a low credit rating... )

The Governor's earlier plan to stop paying state workers until a budget agreement is reached absolutely shocked me. The state is in a recession as it is...we need more unemployment??? And the state workers have zero control over whether a budget agreement is reached or not. Why punish them? Not to mention the lines at the DMV are long enough, don't you think?

Lastly, we are one of a very states to require this difficult-to-obtain 2/3 vote of the legislature to pass the budget every year. I believe the others are Rhode Island and Arkansas. Now I love Little Rhody; both of my parents come from there and my alma mater is there. But it has always had a very corrupt government that operates, in a strange way, in an almost folksy manner. I don't know much about Arkansas. But I do know the 2/3 is a huge obstacle in California and we waste a lot of time and money by budgets being chronically late and, after all the wrangling, written badly.

I want to know what we would save over time by not providing elected officials with health care. Some of them keep insisting they love the "free" market for health insurance so much that I really think we need to do them the favor of being reunited with it. And those are the same ones who want spending cuts so badly; give them the precious gift of one. I am extremely tired of the poor and the sick always taking the hits. You would think that more of the self-professed Christians would be with me on this one, but they seem to skip over the Sermon on the Mount in a big hurry, in their search for every piece of scripture they can find that might justify prohibiting gay people from marrying. Priorities, you know.

Anyway. I take the Next 10 Challenge every year and balance the budget every time, but the odds of my ending up in charge of the budget in real life are pretty tiny ;)