To all you geniuses who think You can easily balance the budget.... (homes, taxes)
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The single biggest problem in California is that you have a small minority of people who pay for nearly all of the services of the majority. You can not have a stable society where most critical functions of government rely on taking from a small minority. When you hear the argument "People won't pay for services" implying that taxes need to be raised, they are ignoring that the people who use most of the services pay next to nothing for them and that the small minority of upper income people in the state pay for nearly everything and the more you place on them, taxes, the more of them leave or produce less.
I see some of the posts here that glibly advocate passing a tax on someone else, but unless EVERYONE in the state has real investment in its success, the majority will simply take more and more until the minority has nothing left to give. Then, chaos.
There are many who are truly in need, who can contribute very little, they must rely on the production of others in which to live, we have a moral responsibility to care for the needy. However a small percentage of the population is in a situation where they can not pay for the services they are receiving in some form or another. They are simply not asked, nor required to do so.
Far better to have everyone who can, make a SIGNIFICANT contribution proportional to their consumption to the operation, management and overall success of the state, through direct labor, taxes, investment, whatever, for the use of services. Have people who take services from the state pay for them through labor or other productive means if they don't have money. When you have to pay for something, you value it, when it is given for free at someone else's cost, you don't care, you don't conserve, you don't appreciate, you just demand more - not a healthy equation for a stable productive society.
There are many who are truly in need, who can contribute very little, they must rely on the production of others in which to live, we have a moral responsibility to care for the needy. However a small percentage of the population is in a situation where they can not pay for the services they are receiving in some form or another. They are simply not asked, nor required to do so.
Far better to have everyone who can, make a SIGNIFICANT contribution proportional to their consumption to the operation, management and overall success of the state, through direct labor, taxes, investment, whatever, for the use of services. Have people who take services from the state pay for them through labor or other productive means if they don't have money. When you have to pay for something, you value it, when it is given for free at someone else's cost, you don't care, you don't conserve, you don't appreciate, you just demand more - not a healthy equation for a stable productive society.
There are also the majority of people on state programs who milk the system. We have no moral responsibility to take care of anyone. Screw that! That is just BEGGING for people to become lazy. If someone is truly disabled from either a job related injury or natural born condition, I have absolutely no problem helping them out. However this is usually not the case. You have a bunch of low income, drug addicts who are too lazy to work, or are not willing to try hard enough to do what it takes to find a job and rather blame all their problems on you and I, and the economy. These are the scumbags who are ripping us tax payers off. State medicare and disability needs to be reformed to set the bar EXTREMELY high in terms of eligibility. Make it annoying and painful to receive services. Eliminate state and federal welfare all together. Cut the illegals off from all government services. Screw the lazy, screw the low income people. Find a better job, stop mooching. Enough is enough. I realize the economy is not perfect right now, but there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing what they have to do to make their lives better. Invest in an education, clothing, haircut, transportation to a new location, whatever it takes.
I agree with your last paragraph however. Make the people taking from the state services who are unable to pay back, work it off. That is ONE step in the right direction.
While were at it, lets get rid of max security prisons all together and dump the prisoners off in Antarctica. The ones smart enough to find a way back to civilization have earned a right to live. (partially kidding of course)
CONGRATULATIONS YOU ELIMINATED THE DEFICIT!
DEFICIT: $-40,000,000
CUTS: $11,930,000,000
TAXES: $12,110,000,000
Equal ratio of cuts and taxes. Basic premise: eliminate fat.
Won't let me cut and paste what I did but, I basically took local government profits and funneled them to the coffers. I cut redundant programs. I got rid of programs like in-home care unless they were in the worst possible situation. I cut funding for a number of state programs.
On the tax side I increased taxes to corporations and the wealthy. Anyone making less than $150,000 salary plus bonus plus stock plus adjunct income, is exempt from any increase. Only those who have a reported annual income (including all facets I mentioned above) that exceeds that amount would get higher taxation. What that does is prevent CEOs who take $1 salaries but millions of dollars in stock shares from getting around paying taxes.
Also not specified, is I would levy a huge fine to any business who insists on building a new structure for a new business if there are vacant businesses anywhere within 5 miles of their selected location that they choose not to take. Basically, if they're building a new structure on previously untouched land, they'll get a huge fine - somewhere in the ballpark of 30% of whatever the final cost of construction, land and licensing ends up being. So if they spend 10 million on a new construction when there is a building of comparable size and dimensions not 2 miles away, they'd better be ready to fork over...what's that...3.36 million? To the state coffers.
Balancing the budget is really not hard. There are hard decisions, yes...but at the end of the day, it's not hard to do. The Governator just does not seem capable of doing what is necessary. The only good thing he's done is start looking at cutting state salaries. Hard decision, but I believe it to be necessary.
LA Times has a long known bias. Funny thing is they rig their website to tell you the only way to solve the problem is to raise taxes, unfortunately, the proposals raise taxes on a tiny minority as always, never asking the VAST majority to pay more. Again, it is always easier to spend other peoples money, than to pay out of your own pocket.
Just another reason that CA will never balance their budget until they expect 90% or more of the population to make a significant contribution.
I had fun with that link, too, a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember the details of my choices except that I stayed away from anything that was likely to be challenged in court (what's the point if it may not be legally valid?), and yes, I cut benefits to the poor and raised taxes. Unfortunately, a $24 billion deficit is huge. I think it's going to get worse, too. The housing market has yet to stabilize, unemployment is still going up, and unfortunately the bulk of the state's income is from property tax and income tax.
When I went into college, I was surprised that we were covering the same amount of material in a 16 week semester as we had in a 9 month year in high school and yet college didn't feel rushed. That was when I realized how much time we wasted in high school with busy work, endless review, or other nonsense. And these were AP classes too! I'm not saying 3rd graders should work at the same pace as high schoolers, but I'm certain they could cut the school year back quite a bit without harming anyone's education if the fluff was taking out of the year.
Or get a lot more done with the same school year. When I was in 5th grade my class had a program where all the books for every year's math classes (through high school) were available and you worked through them at your own pace. The only requirement was that you complete 5th grade math by the end of the school year. The slowest students completed 8th grade math and the fastest was finishing calculus I or II. Unfortunately, the following year we all started back at the same point taking 6th grade math.
By "government" I assume you mean the Legislature an d in some cases, the Governor's Office. State government per se has recommended too many cuts of late and opposed too many bills with price tags attached to be accused of profligate spending. Believe it or not, state employees are capable of basic math at a minimum and recognize when the money just isn't there.
As for the sense of entitlement, whose? Be more specific! There's a difference between the public sector itself and the labor unions Jerry Brown and the Democrats have let take it over. Which are you referring to? The people who do the work or the union-owned and-operated Legislature that's given away the farm?
Ugh.....the unions. Unionized public employees are a ground zero for waste and corruption. This is precisely the entitlement culture I'm referring to, and that's not even including the massive rape of the public dole committed by useless welfare sucking parasites and the Mexican money laundering scheme/illegal-immigrant invasion complete with free health care for anchor babies.
I'm not playing the Republican vs. Democrat game, they're all looters as far as I'm concerned. Some of them are just authentic degenerates, like Jerry Brown, only in CA baby.
I was able to get a negative deficit, 0 taxes also. It's not that hard.
What could be a good solution is for the government to open a new program called the voluntary tax. All people who believe taxes are the solution and that social programs should not be cut, should be invited to pay into this voluntary tax.
As long as enough liberals are paying enough in, none of their beloved programs for other liberals would have to be cut, but if they choose not to pay, then their beloved programs get cut.
19.574 Billion in cuts, 6.785 Billion in new taxes = 2.359 Billion surplus.
Tax High earners, Alcohol, and Cigarettes
Cut:
All Education, Health, and Human Services cuts possible
State workers -- all but teacher retirement and state pensions because of legal challenges
General government -- all but Drug & Alcohol, Emergency Services, Parks
No Law Enforcement or one time fixes.
Call me a heartless bastard but that's the way it has to be. You're living beyond your means in California. I'd also suggest finding a way to eliminate all illegal immigrants from the school system and refusing them access to health care unless they can pay. Find another way of getting cheap labor -- it's not really cheap when you calculate the burden to the tax payer.
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Here's what the Libertarians would propose...
