Grim California deficit horizon

The current estimate is that the 2008-09 budget is $11.2 billion out of whack and the 2009-10 income-outgo gap is another $17 billion, but with new forecasts of a declining economy and up-to-date revenue numbers, state officials believe that both numbers could be as much as 50 percent higher, around $40 billion... [snip]

While the quartet -- dubbed "the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" by one Capitol type -- pleaded for rapid action, there was absolutely no indication afterward that the political stalemate on taxes, spending cuts and demands by Republicans for easing some labor and environmental rules would suddenly resolve itself.

While Democrats believe that the depth of the crisis will compel Republicans to abandon their no-new-taxes position, GOP leaders believe they can force Democrats into giving ground on what they call "economic stimulus" -- a list of pro-business measures, such as no longer requiring overtime pay after eight hours of work, that Democrats and their labor and environmental allies despise...

[this state is now spending in excess of 100 Billion dollars a year ---
and we're supposed to include tax increases - now? - as 'part of the solution'??

It's the spending, idiots. Always has been, yet we keep sending the same idiots back to Sacramento confident that if they just keep running up the tab eventually we'll be forced to throw good money after bad.

Are they right? Silence is interpreted as consent...

READ MORE

then;

"Stop the spending now: No new taxes"


CA Governor: http://gov.ca.gov/interact mailto: governor@governor.ca.gov
CA State Legislature = http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
CA Senate Email list pg. http://www.sen.ca.gov/~newsen/senators/senemail.htp
Sen. Don Perata (9th) Senator.Perata@senate.ca.gov
.