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The Real Campaign Starts After Tomorrow's California Election

May 18, 2009 - 10:59am

The five budget measures on the special election ballot tomorrow are almost certainly headed to defeat. And California, whether the measures pass or not, is in deep fiscal trouble.

I'm ready for the election to be over. Now we'll see the fight over what we do now. Catastrophic cuts? Economy-damaging taxes? Or some sort of federal bailout?

In the direct democracy world, you can expect to see lots of action in the state. All kinds of groups, from various points on the political spectrum, are readying ballot initiatives that seek to capitalize on the crisis by imposing major changes. Could we see the end of the two-thirds supermajority requirement for the budget and/or taxes? Could we send harsh new restrictions on immigrants? Could we have a constitutional convention?

Comments

The Piper must be paid...?

City councilor Andronovich stated that $ 11. billion can be attributed to every illegal alien, who breaks into America, get a free lunch on the taxpayers in Los Angeles county. That's just Los Angeles? What about the rest of the state? How about the taxes extracted from every American, throughout AMERICA? Give a resounding--- NO--- to all propositions. Recall that Proposition 187 was killed, so now Sacramento Democrats must be held accountable. Every year trillions of dollars go silently to supporting the illegal immigration invasion, plus a new AMNESTY will keep extracting money from your taxes to pay for those who keep coming across our border. Join NUMBERSUSA JUDICIALWATCH to stop 2nd AMNESTY? NO MORE TAXES TO PAY ILLEGAL ALIENS & FAMILIES! IMMIGRATION LAWS ARE NOT BROKEN, JUST NOT ENFORCED! So enforce the 1986 Simpson/Mazzoli bill, the Immigration Reform & Control Act as enacted. Offer your support to Rep.Shuler (D-NC) on his gov website. Phone: 828-252-1651 and Senator Sessions (R-AL) (256) 533-0979

Ken Lay's "Gift" to all Californians.. :)

The "gifts" from the "meeting" thats "keeps on giving".....
(see last line below)

Who "propelled" Arnold into the governor's race initially? And which voters "installed him" into his seat of power?

Ol' "Kenny boy" Lay is still playing Californians for the complete, utter, and ignorant foolish voters they have demonstrated themselves to be -- even from the grave today..! Eh tu, Arnold?

Californians: You can now consider yourselves "financially terminated" courtesy of Ken Lay and his hand-picked "Terminator"........

Decades will not wipe out this catastrophe., May 6, 2005
By Miles D. Moore (documentary review - excerpts)

Alex Gibney's "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," based on the book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, is a riveting, masterful documentary about the most appalling catastrophe in American corporate history: the collapse of Enron, brought about by the ruthlessness, greed and treachery of its top executives.

I give one example: of course everyone knows that the California energy crisis brought about largely by the rapacity of Enron energy traders was the main reason for the successful recall effort against California Governor Gray Davis. And most people probably realize, though they don't think about it much, that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chief who refused to help Davis was appointed by George W. Bush on the express recommendation of Ken Lay. But what people almost certainly DON'T know--unless they've seen this movie--is that during the crisis Ken Lay called a meeting in Los Angeles of Enron's Caifornia supporters. No minutes from this meeting have ever come to light, but one of the attendees was Arnold Schwarzenegger. You do the math.

slash union pay and retirement benefits

why is everybody after 2/3 majority? if it was not the 2/3 majority we would be paying lot more taxes today and would still run deficit. We need to reduce spending. It is ok to lay of state worker like rest of us. There is no job security, even for state employees. Cut the over inflated salaries, benefits and retirement. Nobody gets 75% to 80% salary as pension and why should state employees do? Union lobbyist and democrat leadership is in bed together and that is the problem. Why the hell can't state agencies hire like normal business do, let the market set the salary, this is true for rest of us anyway.

California needs FAIR TAXATION

Now California is 50th in the nation in school funding! That's less than Arkansas and Mississippi pay for educating their students. No money for teachers, class sizes are growing, the school year will shrink. (Do you want your students getting a shorter school day, less education, a shorter school year?)

There is NO FAT TO CUT.

50% of our budget should be going to education. As it was under Ronald Regan and Pete Wilson -- when corporations and high-income earners paid their fair share of taxes. Today, the top earners pay less than low-earners, because of the loopholes they use; and corporations now pay 40% of all taxes, compared with the 60% they paid before Prop 13 -- Did you want Prop 13 to protect grandma? or corporations?)

from newamerica.net:
"The Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) reports that in 2004: "Taxpayers earning annual incomes of $200,000 or more accounted for about 5 percent of returns but more than 55 percent of liabilities. In contrast, taxpayers with AGI of less than $50,000 accounted for over 45 percent of returns but less than 6 percent of liabilities." [http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/tax_primer/tax_primer_040907.aspx]"

It's NOT the illegal aliens: They pay more in to the tax system when social security is deducted from their pay but cannot be distributed if the tax numbers are not real.

Do you want an epidemic in California? Lots of uneducated children on the streets? That would be the consequence of refusing health care or education to people who are here without papers.

WE NEED FAIR TAXES TO PAY FOR THE SERVICES WE NEED AND WANT FOR OUR CHILDREN. Don't cheat your children and grandchildren by refusing to pay taxes. We need taxes to pay for education, for police and firefighters, and to keep the DMV open on Saturdays.