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csmonitor.com On November 8, Gov. Brown estimated that the coming California budget deficit would be $3.1 billion, while a leaked legislative memo set it at $5-8 billion. Yet, just a few days later on Nov. 17, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office said (PDF) the actual number would be $13 billion. I must confess that [...] Vallejo is the poster child for what’s ailing California cities. It filed for bankruptcy in 2008, a victim of the real estate crash, losing a major employer in the process, and facing pension costs it cannot possibly meet. Its police department was cut by one-third, and no longer has the resources to focus on [...] Jerry Brown promised no gimmicks or bogus accounting on the budget. Instead, that’s precisely what California got. From my latest on CAIVN. Apparently, $4 billion in unexpected new revenue for the State of California materialized out of thin air right in time to be counted for the budget that just passed. But Gov. Brown and [...] Voters agree with Gov. Brown’s plan to transfer low-risk state inmates to local jails in order to comply with the recent Supreme Court ruling on overcrowding in state prisons. However, they don’t want to pay any extra taxes to do it. They also overwhelmingly say that the current Three Strikes law should be amended to [...] Democratic lawmakers are very sad that the bad ole Controller is making them follow the Constitution [California] Controller John Chiang announced today he has blocked pay for lawmakers, rejecting his own party’s spending plan as insufficient to satisfy a voter-approved law on timely budgets. Good. Maybe the reality of no pay will force California [...] “I put up an all-cuts budget. Then the Democrats change [the all-cuts budget] and put in gimmicks. Then I veto it. Then everybody sits there until we run out of money. It’s not going to be a pretty sight. It’s like one-two: No tax, all cuts, gimmicky budget, veto, paralysis.” This is what Gov. [...] Wow. He absolutely did the right thing, saying the budget is not balanced, uses “legally questionable maneuvers“, and adds billions in new debt. Tip: Calitics When economies sour and budgets fail, people look for answers. And as California’s financial misery continues, some are looking to identify the guilty party, but perhaps the system itself is the real culprit. It certainly seems that way sometimes, doesn’t it? The California legislature shambles around, bumping into things, with no apparent sense of direction. Issues that managed to get resolved quickly in other states (like Utah revising their public pension plans in one year flat) take ponderously interminable amounts of time for California to even start [...] Bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s praised Gov. Brown’s plans to pay down debt by 2015 but still warned that California remains at a “crossroad.” California currently has the lowest S&P credit rating of any state. Such ratings directly impact what interest rates on bonds will be and how easy it is to sell [...] |  | ||||
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