The CA government is tied up in knots with a 20 billion budget shortfall. There are dire warnings of imminent calamity with threats of shutting down the vast welfare safety apparatus, upon which est 10-15 million Californians are directly dependent.
Such programs as Healthy Families, home heath care for seniors, medi-cal, Calworks, we are told, face massive budget cuts. I do not think that we will see much cuts at all. Nor do i see CA tackling the state employees pension problem, which is bankrupting CA. The vested interests will fight tooth and nail to protect their benefits and programs.
I truly believe that all this dire screaming coming from Sacramento and their media spin meisters is just that, spin and agi-propaganda, initiated to get the population prepared for more massive tax increases, and to get Obama to bail out CA with a fed bailout of 7 billion. I have seen this dog and pony show last 2 decades: each year we have a budget shortfall and each time CA manages to slime it's way thru their mess with gimmicks, accounting tricks, borrowing from this fund to bolster that fund, use short term borrowing in the Market, ad nauseum.
Here's some solutions: sell more state assets, some state parks, and other prime properties to China. Allow more offshore oil drilling and more resource extraction, deport 2-3 million illegals who drain the CA social welfare net and steal jobs from UE native Californians, have the IRS & state franchise tax board go into LA and start collecting revenues from the 40% black market economy here in Los Angeles. And cut back on the retirement pension benefits of CA State employees to reasonable levels, which would not break out budget.
