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California is actually doing really well. This year's budget deficit was only $1.9 billion which was one of the smallest as a percentage of GDP of any of the states which had a deficit and even in 2009 and 2010 at the worst of the recession/budget issues it was only 25th out of 50 states as far as the size of the deficit vs GDP. The right wing blogs were simply lying and way over stating how bad it was which isn't surprising given how loose their grasp of reality is.
Heck, the state has been leading the country in new job growth for the last half year and all the economists are projecting it to continue to out perform the national average for next year. As usual the right wing nut jobs are completely clueless and their claims just had no basis in reality.
Could you please source? The only thing I could find that indicated CA's budget deficit is at $1.9 billion is an article that states it will be at $1.9 billion in 2013 due to Prop. 30's passage.
"After years of double-digit deficits, the state will face just a $1.9 billion budget gap next year, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office. Projections for future years show billions of dollars in surpluses.
The legislative analyst, Mac Taylor, called the situation a "dramatic turnaround" for the state, though he cautioned lawmakers to build a reserve and pay off other debts before spending heavily on services.
"But, definitely, this is a much, much more positive situation than we've faced in many, many years. On the whole it's pretty good news," Taylor said.
The state this year will spend $94 billion in general fund services, which include public education, colleges and universities, prisons, and health and human services, according to Taylor.
The annual fiscal outlook released by the analyst Wednesday is based on the general fund and showed a sharp drop from what California confronted just a year ago, when Taylor pegged the problem at $13 billion. The year before that it was a $25.4 billion hole.
At its peak in February 2009, California's deficit hit $42 billion."
Even when CA was a red state, there was talk of splitting it into two states due to water shortages. That talk was happening way back in the 80's...so it was based on water not politics so much at that time.
Could you please source? The only thing I could find that indicated CA's budget deficit is at $1.9 billion is an article that states it will be at $1.9 billion in 2013 due to Prop. 30's passage.
"After years of double-digit deficits, the state will face just a $1.9 billion budget gap next year, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office. Projections for future years show billions of dollars in surpluses.
The legislative analyst, Mac Taylor, called the situation a "dramatic turnaround" for the state, though he cautioned lawmakers to build a reserve and pay off other debts before spending heavily on services.
"But, definitely, this is a much, much more positive situation than we've faced in many, many years. On the whole it's pretty good news," Taylor said.
The state this year will spend $94 billion in general fund services, which include public education, colleges and universities, prisons, and health and human services, according to Taylor.
The annual fiscal outlook released by the analyst Wednesday is based on the general fund and showed a sharp drop from what California confronted just a year ago, when Taylor pegged the problem at $13 billion. The year before that it was a $25.4 billion hole.
At its peak in February 2009, California's deficit hit $42 billion."
I'm guessing you live/lived in CA at some point in your life, are the cuts being made to the budget affecting the average Californian? From what I understand increased taxation is occurring state-wide, and some services have been reduced but I'd imagine that the services being cut aren't really affecting the average citizen. Personally, in DC I wouldn't notice if budget cuts occurred solely because I don't use any of the districts services (of course if say the police dept. were cut, I'd notice). Only thing I really use are roads, highways, so if a cut to say medicare or better yet education happened I wouldn't know (not saying I wouldn't care). When I traveled to CA (my third visit to CA, second to LA) it didn't look as if the state was going through as much fiscal troubles as announced on this site, the media, etc so I just want to know the input of a Californian on the cuts being made.
Regardless if the state were fiscally sound, I believe a divide would be in the best interest for everyone. Two individual governments, could manage things a lot better than one in CA. Shoot, I even wouldn't mind Maryland giving some of its area to surrounding states (give Delaware the entire peninsula, give PA or WV anything 15-20 miles west of Fredrick) if we gained the district but that's just pipeline dreaming, huh? MD isn't the best managed state there is although it has significant tax-revenue for a state of its size and it also receives plenty of federal funding.
I was thinking of it, the state isn't really managed well mostly because its overpopulated but it still has the resources many states dream of and still has plenty of companies. Of course the classical split of California is what I'm questioning, should it be split into Northern California and Southern California? While California is a blue state, I'd believe Northern California would be more blue than Southern California which has San Diego and Orange County (fairly conservative counties). I wouldn't be surprised if most of the tax-revenue (since it has many billionaires, and many large companies) is coming from Northern California but being distributed to Southern California. So what do you guys think?
California still is a great state, but its just too much to manage. So what do you guys think of a split?
It would be nice if California was split for political reasons. I don't think it's actually practical but just from a fairness standpoint it would be nice if conservatives in California had some sort of a voice. Not just California, but all the big states. At some point a state gets so big that your vote if you're in the opposition party is pretty well pointless. That's always going to be the case at some level, and I accept it at small levels. If you're a conservative in Hollywood you're not going to get your guy elected. If you're a liberal in Dothan county Alabama you're not going to get your guy elected. But when it gets to be true at higher and higher levels, people become pretty well disenfranchised in practical terms. I don't think there's any solution to that, nor should there necessarily be one, as the cure might well be worse than the disease such as if every small town had their own rep in Congress, but I'm just making an observation.
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