David Holwerk: It takes an entire state to make a budget debacle this big - Bee Opinion Columns - sacbee.com: "Yep, ultimately the blame for this mess falls on us, the citizens of the great state of California.
After all, we elected the governor and the members of the Assembly and Senate. We passed the various initiatives that have hamstrung the state's ability to deal with falling tax revenues. We elected a governor who simultaneously promised to cut taxes and end crazy deficit spending.
And now, with schools, community colleges and universities struggling, with the prisons overflowing, with truly needy disabled people likely to lose the support they depend on, with cities and counties broke, we can't seem to grasp the seriousness of the moment."
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Fred Pilot sent this along. It seems like a cliche to say, "we, the people, are ultimately to blame." But in this case it is just a fact. The people of California have voted directly for many of the measures that are destroying the state, they elected the representatives who are presiding over the annual budget debacle, and they seem unable to grasp that the ship is sinking.
The same could be said for the citizens of Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and a few other states that are facing insolvency with an oblivious public.
2 comments:
California will become insolvent because it cannot reach a politically negotiated budget resolution notwithstanding multiple fiscal emergency legislative sessions -- the second such session this calendar year to be announced within the hour by the governor -- in addition to the regular legislative budget process that produced a record late budget for the current fiscal year.
Since California cannot reach a solution from within, that means it will be dictated from without by financial institutions, rating houses, creditors and the courts.
Is any state NOT facing this sort of crisis? Florida certainly is.
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