Even more wranging over the proposed state budget

To say no one's happy about this one is an understatement: the latest wrinkle in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's wrestling match with California's giant budget deficit gives schools back $1.8 billion but makes deep cuts in a host of programs to help the infirm and impoverished.

Add in his plan to use the unexpected $828 million in gas tax revenue -- generated by those heart-stopping prices at the pump -- to plug the $15.2-billion budget gap and you've got a lot of unhappy campers.  Evan Halper and Patrick McGreevy explain:

The challenge that the governor and lawmakers face is daunting. The state has dropped $6 billion further into the red since January, when California was already struggling financially.

The centerpiece of Schwarzenegger's budget is a novel plan to ask voters for permission to borrow $15 billion from Wall Street against future earnings of the state lottery, and to temporarily raise the state portion of sales taxes -- now 6.25% -- by 1 percentage point if voters reject the proposal in November.

"As the deficit grew these past few months, I knew that we could not solve this crisis by cuts alone," the governor said in presenting his proposals. "We had to get creative."

But state Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) called the revised budget "beneath a governor of this great state. It's telling our citizens: This is it. Our best years are behind us."

Assembly Republican Leader Michael Villines of Clovis called the sales tax idea -- a linchpin of the governor's plan -- "a deal-killer."

One thing is certain: Something, somewhere, has got to give. Get all the details in the full story.

--Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[Sheriff Bob]

The bottom line is that while many state workers benefit from the system, I realize that we are putting far too many people behind bars in California at a cost of over $40,000 per prisoner per year. Non-violent offenders are crowded in with violent ones and are toughened up. At the end of this experience, we just get more criminals and the cycle continues. Track non-violent offenders away from prison to work programs and we'll help save the State budget (and my retirement).

[Tim_CA]

Yeah Perata..you termed out corrupt sleaze...our best years ARE behind us, thanks to your corrupt ilk bankrupting the state. Let's just keep over-jamming our schools, closing our emergency rooms and inviting more criminal illegal aliens to suck up our tax dollars shall we??

And let's pay for all the social programs to shore up these impoverished citizens of Mexico by over-taxing LEGAL AMERICAN CITIZENS of all races in the state. Further, let's over-tax businesses so that they stampede out of the state also.

We're circiling the bowl people - thanks to the Perata's and the Nunez's and their love of illegal Mexican Aliens and outright disdain of honest American Taxpayers - it really is time to wake up!!

[fed up]

Both these commenters are right: It's criminal to deprive elderly citizens who've worked their whole lives, followed the law, paid taxes and are obviously not rich, of basic social services like in-home care so they can stay in their homes as long as possible. What's the alternative, much more expensive nursing homes, that the state won't pay for either? Only Government union workers have hugely expensive and overly generous lifetime pensions so they don't have to worry about these things.

Throwing our elderly and other citizens who are underemployed or down on their luck into the streets, because the Governator has been too much of a coward to stand with those Republicans who wanted to enforce ILLEGAL immigration before it got this disastrous, is literally criminal. The county hospitals and clinics serve mostly illegals, who increasingly have a sense of entitlement and a fierce, anti-'anglo" and anti-American attitude, fostered by radical MeCHA leaders like Gil Cedillo and Nunez. Yes, Perata and the rest are also enablers.

"Sheriff Bob" is right about the jails: half of all state inmates have either substance abuse or mental health problems, and don't get treatment because we don't have the money. Because of vicious illegal alien criminals, who make up almost 1/3 the local jails, and would make up more if it weren't for SP40. These guys are given basically a chance to "network" and cement gang alliances, from those Hispanic ones run by La Eme (who give orders to all the rest, like 18th St., MS13, Florencia 13, etc.) and the black gangs starting with Bloods and Crips.

This is cruel and unusual punishment, some are even killed -- or, some of these mentally ill ones kill their cellmates. Deporting the 1/3 who are illegal would save us that amount of budget for humane programs off the bat. Getting them off the streets in the first place would put money into programs for legal resident youths.

Stealing the gas tax AGAIN FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW is hardly "unexpected," nor is the amount of the surplus. Last year it was 50% more, or $1.2 BILLION, for a total of $2 BILLION NOW. Voters naively approved these taxes because WE WERE PROMISED THIS MONEY WOULD GO ONLY TO TRANSPORTATION FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS, from roads and highways to mass transit. We can't finish our subway line "to the sea" or Expo Phase II to anywhere, because we have no money. We're imposing expensive tolls to try to raise some, and Arnold wants to tax us with NEW taxes, hoping the public and press are too stupid to realize the theft of a mere $2 BILLION; he seems to be right.

Giving the bulk of the money to the schools is crazy -- they should be punished for their waste, not rewarded. A total of over a billion spent on schools like that thing going up downtown that looks like a slide, Belmont on a toxic waste dump, another similar case in East Hollywood, etc. etc.; half a billion wasted on that notorious payroll system that doesn't work; another equal amount on useless consultant and P R agencies to convince us that these things aren't happening; and half a million/ year on useless Brewer's salary, car, housing expenses, etc. All the tip of the iceberg. While LA schools are the poorest among big cities in the nation.

Meanwhile the UtLA/ Teacher's Union and LAUSD Board, "old" and "new," fight tooth and nail against the legal right of parents to use any facilities for charters, arguing circular logic like, "If they can be more successful than we are even in a rented, unairconditioned warehouse or storefront, let them go on doing it." (Julie Korenstein and her clique.)

They also often refuse to release students from LAUSD whose desperate parents get their kids permits for good school systems like Beverly Hills, or even Culver City, Pasadena, Burbank, Manhattan Beach -- ANYWHERE but LAUSD. Because they'd rather force students to to to gang- infested hellholes just to get the money for their body showing up. 3/4 of LAUSD are Hispanics, most illegals, almost all getting free meals as low-income (much of the food they throw away), another 1/8 black, and only 11% are White or Asian.

UTLA and LAUSD are fascist organizations that are also criminal for depriving kids of a better education, and subjecting them to mental and physical abuse. (But if a parent tries to discipline one of their little trouble-making monsters, the P C thinking kicks in and hauls the parents to jail -- the kids know how to play the parents this way.)

Until LAUSD and UTLA follow the law about giving free choice to parents who want their money and students in charters and out of district permits, while failing the students trapped in their juve detention halls/ schools, they should be punished, not rewarded with more money.