CA on the Brink of Massive Fiscal Crisis While GOP Minority BLOCKS Much-Needed Tax Increases

[babylonsister]

What does voting across party lines have to do with saving CA during a fiscal crisis? These rethugs are really gross.:grr:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/california-brink-massive-fiscal-crisi

California on the Brink of Massive Fiscal Crisis While GOP Minority Blocks Much-Needed Tax Increases
By Susie Madrak Tuesday Feb 17, 2009 2:11pm


The California budget mess is rapidly turning into a full-blown crisis, thanks to being held hostage by some of the legislature's minority Republicans:

LOS ANGELES — The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently bereft of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails.

Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.

Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. “In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months,” Mr. David said.

And what seems to be the problem? This may sound familiar:

Democrats, who had already given into Republicans’ long-held dreams of large tax cuts for small businesses and for some of the entertainment industry and a proposed $10,000 tax break for first-time home buyers, balked at Mr. Maldonado’s request that the Legislature tuck a bill into the package that would allow voters to cross party lines in primaries.

“I think with an open primary, we would have good government that would do the people’s work,” Mr. Maldonado said.

The Party of No, faced with fiscal disaster, invariably holds out for political advantage. Faced with Solomon's decision, they will always insist on cutting the baby in half.

Paul Krugman warns:

Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.

This could be America next.

[McCamy Taylor]

1. Ready to recall Arnold yet?

[Median Democrat]

3. Gray Davis Is Abraham Lincoln Compared To Arnold

Ironically, Davis was recalled due to similar obstructionist efforts by the GOP minority. That is all they know. Worse, because of California's poor bond rating, Calfornia cannot simply borrow their way out of this mess.

[babylonsister]

4. If I were a Californian, I wouldn't be happy...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/us/17cali.html

snip//

And then there is Governor Schwarzenegger, whose budget woes far outweigh those of his predecessor, Gray Davis, whom he drummed from office in a 2003 recall that stemmed from the state’s fiscal problems at the time. The governor has failed to muster votes among lawmakers in his own party, whom he often opposes on ideological grounds, resulting in more scorn from Democrats.

[Median Democrat]

5. Its Easy Being A GOP State Legislator In California...

You sign your no new tax pledge, then call it a day until you are termed out. No minimal effort to govern or compromise is required.

[pinto]

6. The "pledge" seems all that counts. It's ludicrous.

[pinto]

7. No. A pointless. costly enterprise. I favor working to get a clear 2010 census,

registering new Dems in the gerrymandered districts, advocating for closing Prop 13 loopholes in 2010 and electing a Dem Governor and more Dems in 2010 (Arnold is term limited out of office.)

[Median Democrat]

2. Krugman Is Wrong

"This could be America next." No, this WILL BE America next.

The Republican's Rovian efforts to obstruct efforts to respond to the economic crisis without any effort to compromise is just a continuation of what went on in connection with the stiumulus. Worse, with California's 2/3 supermajority requirement, the Republican minority has been attaching various pre-conditions to a "yes" vote, then adding additional requirements whenever a deal looks eminent.

Rush Limbaugh's desire to doom the Obama presidency may find fruition in California, since the RW media has aleady held Kantor's obstructionist efforts as a "success" with Kantor being celebrated as the second coming of Newt as though this were a good thing.

[msongs]

8. a smart democratic party would flood the airwaves with ads about this - but they are CA dems

and would not do such a thing.

Msongs

[XemaSab]

9. +1

n/t

[pinto]

10. Regardless how this year's budget gets resolved, this sad fiasco is a great Dem talking point.

From Republican obstructionism - a vague, mild claim - to State House Republicans holding a state budget and state jobs "hostage" - a clearer, truer and more pointed POV. We can't continue along this path. A few handfuls of Orange County, San Diego County and Central Valley Republicans can't be allowed to bankrupt this state.

[ShadowLiberal]

11. It seems the GOP ideology keeps on getting more and more dangerous and self destructive over time

Seriously, this is a perfect example of a party becoming more self destructive by the day, both in their bravery at saying no to just about anything that they don't agree with 90% of or more, and in how their policies have evolved over time.

I mean seriously, look at all of their self destructive policies today.

-Today's GOP seems to hold the belief that ANY tax cuts ever passed MUST be permanent, and that taxes can NEVER be raised for any reason, no matter how needed it is. It's a good thing today's GOP wasn't a part of the first congress, they would have been just fine keeping the old articles of confederation where the national government didn't even have the power to tax anyone, enforce any of it's laws, and was usually flat broke.

-Today's GOP insists all abortions should be banned, yet if they had their way they'd eliminate (or heavily cut) stuff like welfare and other programs that would help poor and teenage mothers, which there would be a lot more of without abortions. If they could control school's sex education then they'd ban even mentioning things like condoms, and teach abstinence only, which plenty of studies show doesn't work, and only makes teens have unsafe sex when they do have it. Oh, and then there's the whole overpopulation of the earth problem to that doesn't get helped by this.

-On a related note to abortion, it's predicted that in a few decades (maybe by 2040, I forget exactly) that white people will no longer be a majority, but just a plurality. With the GOP still being mostly an all white party, and having burned bridges with Hispanics recently (the fastest growing minority group in America) this means that if racial group's voting patterns of today continue to hold in the future, that the GOP will be a permanent minority. Yet that doesn't stop the GOP from railing against illegal immigration, knowing it'll piss off Hispanics even more. And if the GOP was for stuff like abortion and family planning then this trend would almost certainly go slower.