Schwarzenegger Declares Fiscal Emergency In California

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency to address California's deficit and has ordered state offices closed three days a month to save cash.

The Legislature will have 45 days to send him a plan to balance the state's budget, which ended the fiscal year with a $24.3 billion deficit. The shortfall is expected to grow by $7 billion because the Legislature did not enact several stopgap measures Tuesday.

If lawmakers fail to act within the 45 days, they cannot adjourn or act on other bills until they solve the crisis.

The government shutdown will lead to a third furlough day each month for 235,000 state employees, bringing their total pay cut to about 14 percent.

California began its new budget year Wednesday without a balanced spending plan, which will force the controller to issue IOUs.

Comments

[spiritpony1]

Been asking this for 18 years--------all I get is duhs'--------very strange-----they get energized around a lot of other nothing b.s. (prayer in schools, on and on)

[drec1500Madrid]

I would really like to see the books that California keeps. All the contracts they have with giant corporate entities. All the salaries. Basically where the money goes.

Then we can take a look at the revenue side and examine that. How much do residence pay in taxes, how much to corporations pay, small businesses, fees, licenses, etc...

I bet 4 good old school accountants could clear this mess up in an afternoon.

Unfortunately these things tend to exist in a black hole.

[BlueStateMensch]

If AHHNALD didn't repeal the car tax...

EVERY PENNY of that deficit would have been GONE.

[Egghead]

Not all of it. But a heck of a lot of it would. What a stupid waste.

[quietreader]

Well that is what happens with unintelligent tax policies.

There are enough people with more than enough money in California. Time to raise and collect taxes!

[AirViceMarshalPark]

Don't take the IOUs; these are ArnoldBucks and they are worthless.

How much is the Governor's mansion and the furniture worth? Take that, instead.

[iswideopen]

Arnold S., I am a Californian. You are a disgrace to our state. You rode in on your "protect the corporations and insurance companies horse" and just look at us now. Republican voters are so uninformed and bogged down in that "no tax" idealogy, that you have attempted to fool them into believing that it is the fault of the "unions". I can not believe they are that gullable. Guess what people, if unions didn't exist, there are some nasty human beings in this world who hold the title "supervisor" and may not like the way you look. As a result, you could be fired at will. Some try now, but because of the union, people get their jobs back after their lives have been destroyed with no income while they wait. Go to the state website and just read some of the cases over the years. We are human beings, Arnold, not pawns to be toyed with and held hostage because you are not intelligent enough to run a dog kennel. You are affecting my lfe, as well as countless other state of California employees. We will pay you republicans back at the polls. Republicans have become the "talk", even at the grocery store these days. And btw, I dare any rural area republican voter to move to California and even "attempt" to be employed by the state of California. Only then would they know the truth and have a story to really tell the people.

[KttN]

Don't drag poor dogs into this one! Arnold's solution to fix the budget is to euthanize shelter dogs after 3 days instead of six. The man has no soul like all good Republicans.

[kdizza]

California is terminated!

[Janel]

Sorry, Arnold. Evidently most of the world is consumed by the ongoing soap opera of Michael Jackson's death. This is sad. . .but seems to be reality today.

[josephXY]

How right you are. One gets a first hand experience on the disappearance of cultures. Of some
old cultures it is known that they lost the plot, got decadent ... and vanished.
Anyway, also the media are disappearing gradually, that's also interesting to watch.

[Rictracee]

If all the rich people in CA woul pay their fair share of taxes.. then they would not be bankrupt.. But since they find all kinds of loops holes to get out of paying the taxes they are in trouble.. this is also what you get when a blue state vote in a republican governor just because they liked his movies..

[mergina]

Actually a fiscal emergency should have been called the day he said he was running for office. He is inept and like so many politicians around the country, wallows in mismanagement. In the real world none of them could hold their positions for very long.

[Badger84]

Speaking as an outsider, I was wondering if there have been any organized efforts to repeal Prop 13.

[Osusuki]

Several, but they don't call it the "third rail of California politics" for nothing. Warren Buffet told Arnold he should repeal Prop. 13 right off the bat the day he took office. Arnold told him the next time he mentioned Prop. 13 he was going to make him do 500 situps. It will take a constitutional amendment to eliminate Prop. 13, and truthfully, I (and many others) believe it would be easier to beat enough Republicans out of their seats in the next election to give the grownups a standing 2/3 majority and make the point moot.

[poster1122]

Repealing Prop 13 is a non starter.

This past May, there were a series of ballot initiatives that included tax increases to narrow the budget shortfall. All the ballot measures lost by healthy margins. Compared to repealing Prop 13, the tax increases were trivial. If you can't get those passed, you have no hope of doing anything about Prop 13.

I think the cold truth is this: Spending *per capita* in California increased 39% between 1997 and 2007. We've tightened up a bit since 2007 (we're "only" up 23% since 1997 levels), but we're still way up from 2007. People clearly don't want to pay for these generous spending packages as evidence by vote after vote against tax increases. So it's time to cut spending.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/05/spending-and-taxes-california

[Osusuki]

I think if you look closely, you'll find the reason the ballot measures got so few votes is that they were tied to GOP budget poison pills designed to let Republican legislators vote for the budget (didn't work). Also, there was a real feeling on both sides of the aisle that we sent those guys to Sacramento to do a job and they didn't get it done.

[Wombat]

California is broke and will soon shut down along with all those essential services. 30 years of Ronald Reagan conservatisim has finally worked and we will be living in a Libertarian paradise. Atals has shrugged

[iswideopen]

Wombat:
You are correct. That is what really happened to California, Ronald Reagan. The worst govenor and president that gets praise for letting "greed" be fashionable for the wealthy and degrading minorities as he kicked them out onto the streets, especially the mentally ill. No one wants to tell the truth. But what I want to see is if Arnold S. will really put the disabled and senior citizens out of their residences and send them into the streets like Reagan did. How in the world can any city or state function by collecting taxes from the workers who's wages are not high enough to pay the portion that the wealthy are not paying. Add that to their off shore accounts and that is it in a nutshell. These republican voters have been voting against their own economic interest for so long, they are still waiting to "get rich" by working hard and keeping the "government" out of their business. Good luck with that; you've been had. Again, and again, and again,,,,,­,,,,,,,,,,­,,,,,,,,,,­,,,,,,,,,,

[barksalot]

Judging by what I'm reading he did make a big mistake releasing the mentally ill

[spiritpony1]

the borrowing leg. has not helped, and the refusal to have a reversal of Prop. 13 is also part of the problem---all those old folks jarvis, et al-----long gone -----I do not understand why Ca. voters have not done away w/ this---

[lazercat2008]

Arnold, what is the problem? You cut out welfare mom's and trim the fat in government and everything will be fine. You are the Terminator man, start terminating some of these programs and jobs.

[Lilith33]

fox news?
WASHINGTON — President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.
FOXNEWS.CO­M HOME > POLITICS

Documents: Bush's Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler


Prescott Bush (search) was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Fritz Thyssen (search) was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort. His position with Union Banking never was a political issue for Bush, who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.


you didnt know?
Why am I not suprised?

[Lilith33]

Cont.


Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act (search).

No charges were brought against Union Banking's American directors. The federal government was too busy trying to fight the war, said Donald Goldstein, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

"We did not have the resources to do these things," Goldstein said.

[PinkysBrain]

Watch out for carpal tunnel....­.

[barksalot]

What does this have to do with California? Rhubarb is on sale at the grocery.

[Lilith33]

Sombody doesnt know about Bushs grandad...­Prescott;
WIKI;
[edit] Bush and the Union Banking Corporation
Bush was one of seven directors of the Union Banking Corporation, an investment bank controlled by the Thyssen family, which was seized in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act as being owned by "enemy aliens." The assets were held by the government for the duration of the war, then returned afterward.

In an article relying on John Buchanan's work, The Guardian stated that the company formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.[8] The Alien Property Custodian records state "Whether all or part of the funds held by Union Banking Corporation, or companies associated with it, belong to Fritz Thyssen could not be established in this investigat­ion." [9] The seizure of companies under the Act were designated "classified" and declassified in 2002 when all similar records were declassified

[Lilith33]

One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush was a founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents, which list him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share in UBC worth $125.

The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law to provide a US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial family.

August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major contributor to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and his sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks and companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore if threatened again.


Seem familiar?

[PinkysBrain]

Straight from the Daily Kos