California's deficit balloons to over $25 billion

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(11-11) 04:00 PST Sacramento - --

California faces a $25.4 billion budget deficit over the next 20 months - nearly double what some leading lawmakers predicted a week ago - and a solution to this newest crisis is expected to be far more difficult than in years past, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said Wednesday.

Declining revenue and lawmakers' past reliance on one-time budget fixes have contributed to the recurring deficit, Mac Taylor, the legislative analyst, said.

California, Taylor said, has a basic choice: Solve the problem now or pass it to future Californians.

Taylor suggested that the Legislature act quickly and consider both cuts to services and increases in taxes. Lawmakers have refused to raise taxes since February 2009.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/11/MNJA1GA39R.DTL

[flamingdem]

1. Brown said no new taxes without voter approval nt

[Ozymanithrax]

2. A very stupid thing said in pursuit of an office.

But Republicans will be happy if he should insist on that.

Most of us Californians love our something for nothing life style and are unlikely to approve a tax increase.

[stopbush]

3. Easy solution - Jerry needs to go after the BILLIONS we overpay to the Feds

each year.

Californians currently get $.78 back for every $1 we send to DC in the form of Fed taxes. When Reagan was pres, we got back $1 for each $1 we sent to DC.

That translates into $48-BILLION a year that leaves CA and ends up being redistributed to states like NM (which gets $2.31 back for every $1 they send DC) and Alaska, where they build their bridges to nowhere.

All so other states can look at CA and call us disfunctional, while they use $ collected from CA residents and redistributed to mostly red states to plug their own budget shortfalls.

CA doesn't need more taxes, we need more equity in how the high taxes we already pay are put to use helping CA, rather than helping a bunch of freeloader states make their ends meet.

I have a simple proposal - no state gets less than 90% of what they send to the feds back in revenue distribution and no state gets more than 110% back. CA could well live within those means. I wonder how many of the freeloader states would be able to live within 110% of their means?

Do the math - $48-BILLION in additional revenue for CA for ONE year would practically zero out a TWO-year deficit at $25-B per year.

[flamingdem]

4. Can Brown do anything about this overpayment? nt

[stopbush]

7. Brown and the Legislature could start to make a stink about it.

There are only 17 "donor states" in the USA, ie: states that send more to the Feds than they get back. All of those states are blue states.

Money gets redistributed in Congress. You have 34 donor state Senators up against 66 freeloader state Senators when it comes to redistribution of Fed tax revenue. Who is going to win that battle? Who has a stake in making the system more equitable and who has a stake in maintaining the status quo?

Most Americans aren't aware of the inequity. Most Californians aren't aware of the inequity. Hell, most CA politicians aren't aware of the inequity!

Making a stink about it, making it "an issue" is the place to start.

[flamingdem]

10. Fingers crossed for our future with Jerry, he's got a lot on his plate

and I read that we might even get some early action on health insurance, the exchanges I suppose.

[aggiesal]

17. Yes, but it is the HOUSE that control ...

the purse strings.
And California has more congress-people (52) then any other state.
Unfortunately, congress just doesn't give money to states.
It gives money to agencies and contracts that work within the states.
I think it would be very difficult to balance out these inequalities.

[Baalath]

11. So you are suggesting

that the federal government should function on ten percent of the current money it collects for all military funding, international aid, NIH research, UN funding, government expenses etc. The federal government must give back 90% of everything it collects to the residents of the state it was collected in. On top of that the feds would need to kick in an extra ten percent to states that need more.

If that was possible, wouldn't the next logical step be to reduce federal taxes by 90 percent and just let the state collect the money they need directly from their citizens?

[stopbush]

12. One could make the case to just let the states collect the money

and keep it in their states.

Of course, that would be a huge benefit to all of the coastal states that have ports of entry with lots of commerce flowing through them. That would certainly benefit heavily-populated states as well...which also happen to be coastal states.

Who gets hurt in such a scheme? - lightly-populated states in the heartland. Maybe that means that WV doesn't get to repave the Robert Byrd Highway every two years. Maybe that means that people who decide to live in AZ do so knowing that they'll be paying high taxes to build that border fence they all seem to love. OR, maybe they'll need to stop the scaremongering and admit that their aren't hundreds of murdered bodies lying out in the AZ desert, and that maybe that fence isn't such a necessity after all. Maybe they need to admit that the immigrant population contributes a lot more to AZ society than it costs AZ society, and that scapegoating minorities isn't such an easy political strategy to embrace when you don't have tax $ collected in CA handy to build unnecessary boondoogles like a 15-ft-high fence on your border to fulfill your political agenda. maybe you need to start identifying real problems and offering real solutions instead.

Maybe some states will need to initiate state income tax levels that more honestly represent the expense of running the state. Lots of states keep their taxes low to attract businesses, secure in the knowledge that they can do so because they're going to get a healthy subsidy from the residents of CA in the form of Fed tax redistribution to plug the revenue shortfall that their "low tax state" policies incur.

Ideally, Fed money is redistributed from rich states to poor states to hopefully make life better for all, to "provide for the general welfare," as it were. Where it gets out of whack is in a situation like the one I described in the preceding paragraph.

BTW - DC gets about $5.15 back for every $1 it collects in Fed taxes. That's to be expected as the government is located in DC.

[pezDispenser]

26. e pluribus unum

I guess for you that requires a :sarcasm: tag.

[truedelphi]

22. Consider for a few moments how the Federal government - through the collusion of the

Bush/Obama, Bernanke(Paulson)/Geithner style of economic re-arranging, has taken the money from Main Street and given it away- eleven trillion and counting (if we can believe the good people over at the CNN Bailout Tracker)

So, yes, I think it makes sense to tell the friggin' Federal Government that they do not deserve ninety percent of our money. Without that money, they might have to stop fighting their endless wars, and stop Bailing Out Wall Street.

This state is in arrears because of two things

1) As StopBush is saying, we only get between 72% and 78% of all the money we hand over. That is not fair. How much of our money ended up going to the Big Bankers? to the Large Financial Firms? (
Meanwhile those firms are not helping any California industries - Hollywood movie projects are in limbo due to no loans being offered. Dairy Farmers slaughtered their cows and this hurts everyone as these were the small family dairy farmers who are trying to do things in a more humane and organic way.

2) There is a law on the books that no California governor has ever been able to force the Feds to comply with. This law states that California must be paid a sum of "x" for every immigrant who arrives here. We get massive numbers of people from everywhere, The Pacific Rim, Haiti, China, Phillipines, Eastern Europe, South of the Border, Ethiopia, etc.

Huge numbers of people. Whether this is wrong or right, I don't know, but it is WRONG that the Federal government lets us assume all the costs when legislation states that the Feds are required to offer financial help.

[Ozymanithrax]

15. Our Senators could get more in earmarks..

and fight for more projects that bring money back into the state, but states don't have a claim to Federtal taxes, which go to pay for the Federal government, Federal programs, and the Federal budget. They are not now and have never been part of state revenues.

[truedelphi]

18. Of the few people I have currently on my

"Ignore" list, the person you are trying to reason with is one of them.

There was a reason (sanity, need for low blood pressure, etc) that forced me to put them on that list.

[truedelphi]

19. I wondered while watching the commercials

in which Meg called Jerry names, and then Jerry attacked her back, if either candidate understood this vital piece of information. (not that I didn't think meg deserved Jerry's attacks - but I still don't know what he plans on doing for us.)

[Gamey]

20. NM has the highest return of taxes...

...because 2 of the nation's top research labs are located here as well as a myriad of military installations including White Sands.

[Creative]

30. First, you will have to repeal the 16th Amendment.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes,
from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several
States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.


"without apportionment among the several States," is the issue.

[StarsInHerHair]

31. sounds good to me

I hope those in charge read this forum

[XemaSab]

29. You pay nothing in taxes?

How can I hook that up?

[Hawkeye-X]

5. If they had managed to pass Prop 19

they wouldn't have that projected deficit.

They'll try again in 2012 along with Colorado.

[Ozymanithrax]

16. But they did not, and Prop 19 would not have broght in

25 billion in taxes the first year.

[slackmaster]

27. It wouldn't have ever been a source of direct income for the state

It would only have authorized counties and cities to assess taxes on commerce.

[rocktivity]

6. If would only be $19 billion

if Ahh-nuld hadn't left the Enron settlement on the table.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[AndyTiedye]

8. Enron Put Ahnold in the Governor's Office To Ensure They Would Keep their Ill-Gotten Gains

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2012393

[bemildred]

9. Chevron posts lower profit; revenue up nearly 7%

San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron /quotes/comstock/13*!cvx/quotes/nls/cvx (CVX 85.86, +0.69, +0.81%) , a Dow Jones Industrial Average component, said earnings dropped to $3.77 billion, or $1.87 a share, from $3.83 billion, or $1.92 a share, in the year-ago third quarter.

Currency fluctuations cost the company $367 million in the latest quarter, compared to $170 million in the year-ago period. Last year, Chevron also booked a one-time gain of $400 million, or 20 cents a share, from asset sales and tax items.

Quarterly revenue rose to $49.72 billion from the prior year’s $46.63 billion.

Analysts had been looking for Chevron to earn $2.16 a share, according to a survey of analysts by FactSet Research.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chevron-posts-lower-net-revenue-up-nearly-7-2010-10-29

Hmmm, where could we get some money to fill that gap?

[Evasporque]

13. Tea Party in California calls for big Tax Cuts....nt

[StarsInHerHair]

32. the TPs are idiots

guided by their prejudices

[meow mix]

14. whups should have passed 19 but decided to listen to the lies

mj is soooooo dangerous, pass the vodka please

[thelordofhell]

21. The republican way

1. Get in office

2. Fuck up the office

3. Leave office for Democrat to clean up

4. Bitch about the clean up to gain advantage to get back in office

repeat steps 1-4

[lunatica]

24. true that, n/t

[Imajika]

23. The big problem is all aid to the states ends in this new congress...

The GOP will never approve any of the state aid that was allowing California and a few others to avoid massive public sector layoffs.

Without these federal funds, draconian cutbacks and layoffs are likely. There is just little way around it.

[LaPera]

25. A year after Brown takes office the republicans will be screaming blaming Brown (like they do Obama)

The republican a year from now will be pushing the same bullshit in their corporate media - saying the deficit is ALL Brown's fault & doing and how come there's no jobs yet and the fucking idiot & gullible moronic Fox news-Limbaugh/Beck sheep will say, yeah, Brown created this whole state budget mess, damn democrats!

Republicans always count on peoples ignorance short memories and love to believe others finger pointing..

[Ian David]

28. California's governor is an economic girlie-man