One more reason to be GLAD we live in San Antonio! (house, closing)

[Paka]

From todays news:

Calif. governor proposes deep cuts - Yahoo! News (broken link)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency in California Thursday, and released a state budget proposal that would close an estimated $14 billion gap by cutting education funds, releasing inmates and closing dozens of state parks.

The article does not paint a very good picture for the state as a whole for fiscal responsibility. Wonder what the do with all that state income tax? I would be VERY upset as a tax paying Californian to see the first place they cut is education and state parks!

[MichelleSG]

Yeah, with all the properties being so inflated $$ you'd think that they'd be getting some greater revenue from it but no. I think the problem started decades ago but they are paying now! Soooo glad we moved!

[spamatdan]

I did not see this coming, but thank goodness I packed up everything I owned and moved here.

I cannot imagine all of those state parks closing, and just how do you choose which ones to close?

Oh sure, maybe based on annual admissions but wow...what a mess!

[datacity]

The problem there is in some ways the exact opposite of what is happening here in Texas. There, they have a state government that is perhaps a bit overzealous in its protection of everyone and everything to the point of trying to do too much. Here, for the second biggest state in the union (size and population), we have a state government that does not protect its citizens as well as it seems to protect itself or wealthy corporations and individuals. Some of this is historical and would require a change in the constitution to allow the legislature to do more... which means we would have to demand it.

The reason they are in a pickle is that a good portion of the CA state budget is earmarked for specific programs... due to constitutional ammendments/propositions or whatever... just like our federal government budget. While they do have an income tax, the property tax rate is usually half of what it is here.

Additionally, as the last five years has shown, property values tend to rise much faster there -- imagine if your taxable value would have doubled or tripled since 2000! A similar rise in values in the 70s led to a lot of families and senior citizens being forced out of homes they had lived in for years or decades because they couldn't afford their property tax. This led to the landmark proposition 13 which capped the yearly tax appraisal increase to a couple percent. So today, you will find two families living on the same street in a similar house with one paying a fraction of the other in property tax.

Lastly, when things have gone well with excess tax revenue, the money has not been set aside for the eventual rainy day...which is here. So the only solutions they have are to cut expenses (budget cuts) or raise revenue (taxes). There probably will be a little of each. How come we are told to plan for a rainy day, but governments rarely do?

As for us here, sadly we have our own issues and they probably will get worse as time goes on and the population continues to grow. We already have new taxes (some toll roads, margin tax on small and large business,etc..) and we will have further pressure for more spending.