Stimulus Bill realities, CA style...

Report: California faces another $8B budget gap

By JUDY LIN,Associated Press Writer AP - Saturday, March 14

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The California Legislature's budget analyst says the recession has created another $8 billion hole in the state's budget just weeks after the end of a bruising fight to close a $42 billion gap through June 2010.

Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor says in the report released Friday that California's 10.1 percent unemployment rate, further declines in the stock market and lower tax collections have led to lower revenue projections. He expects the new $8 billion budget gap in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

State Controller John Chiang also said this week that February revenues were nearly $1 billion below previous projections.

Taylor says the deficit will grow even larger unless lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger take action.

Link: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20090314/twl-california-budget-1be00ca.html

The dems solution? Raise taxes...

Job growth, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, we heard a lot of promises from Obama and the dems about the $785 billion stimulus bill.

meanwhile, all we have heard from rush and the pubbies is bitterness, misrepresentations and not one single new idea.

welll, several have said that they hope the president of the united states fails. that's new, even for them.

Just received the news about California obtaining $50 billion from the bill.

actually the article said $31b. still, out of $785 ? pretty good slice.

8 percent is going towards funding transportation projects. 8 percent!

$4 billion is quite a lot of money. that will get a lot of construction workers and materials and hardware companies back to work, won't it?

The rest?

Education, health care, unemployment, housing, welfare...

kids need to be taught, so that we can compete with people from other countries that have a much higher opinion of an educated mind. education requires teachers and administrators. i don't work for free. i doubt that you do, either. why should they ? health care is a growing industry, and will probably only get bigger, now that scientists have had the blinders and shackles taken off.

what's wrong with unemployment funding? part of the money comes out your check when you do work, right ?

here's what i don't understand about the right wing pov... there seems to be not a shred of compassion for the misfortune of others. but, when a right winger takes a hit, it's like, "well, where's mine??". how does that work ?

there's a perception that every single person on unemployment, section 8 and welfare is a no good, lazy mooch. but here's a tip; some people are useless slobs and take advantage. but, on the other hand, most just a need a little short term help getting it together. and some just aren't very good at life and some are just not smart enough.

it happens. so what is the right wing answer to these problems ? "cut taxes". that's it ? "cut taxes" ?

has occured to you guys that it may be possible to thin out the roles of these social services a bit, or even a lot, by better educating people. by making sure that a woman delivers a healthy baby by making sure that decent pre-natal care is available and that the child can get proper care in the important growing years; ya know, in the event that the parents aren't one of the self made millionaires that republicans seem to believe roam the nation like the ginormous bison herds of 200 years ago.

it's kind of an important question since the republican party is the party that has decided that small government is better; except when it comes to telling a woman that she will have that unwanted baby, whether or not she wants it, or can even afford it.

Is this how you grow 2.5 million jobs, as Obama has been fond of saying?

all of those things require humans to be not fired or hired.

and btw, another way to reduce social services costs would be to put an end to the wholesale export of jobs to other countries because it makes a better bottom line for the effin' multinational corporations that have had the american worker's balls in a vice for over 20 years.

so i reckon there's a bit of blame that goes to the freemarket happy, regulatory hating, tax stingy right wingers in business, don't ya think ?

Granted, California is going down the tubes. Mostly because our state legislature has been controlled by the dem party for decades, and they have empowered state employee unions with extravagant pay, retirement, and benefits, allowed environmentalists veto power over most business, and allowed excessive social spending until the state has run out of money.

apparently, the majority of californians like the democratic led legislatures. they just increased their seats last fall. jerry brown was the governor when i moved here in the '70s. since then it's been deukmejian (r), wilson (r), gray davis (d) and ahnoldt (r). in fact, except for davis, brown, brown's dad and olson, nearly every other cali guber has been a republican.

but it seems to me that the down turn in cali's fortunes has more to do with the end of the cold war, underfunding of aerospace, production high taling it to canada and it's film tax credits.

So the stimulus, er, spending bill will bail out the state.

pardon me... but could you tell me how you would stimulate the economy with out spending anything ? but bear in mind that a tax break is equal to spending.

This year.

and without it, there won't be a next year...

We're doomed, people...

yeah! that's the spirit!! if we all wish real, real hard, maybe obama will fail! and then we can all rest easy. in our cardboard boxes down by the river.

A Lone Voice wrote:

The dems solution? Raise taxes...

So that more wealthy Californians move out of state, thus reducing tax revenues even more. Then what?

$4 billion is quite a lot of money. that will get a lot of construction workers and materials and hardware companies back to work, won't it?

kids need to be taught, so that we can compete with people from other countries that have a much higher opinion of an educated mind. education requires teachers and administrators. i don't work for free. i doubt that you do, either. why should they ? health care is a growing industry, and will probably only get bigger, now that scientists have had the blinders and shackles taken off.

what's wrong with unemployment funding? part of the money comes out your check when you do work, right ?

has occured to you guys that it may be possible to thin out the roles of these social services a bit, or even a lot, by better educating people. by making sure that a woman delivers a healthy baby by making sure that decent pre-natal care is available and that the child can get proper care in the important growing years; ya know, in the event that the parents aren't one of the self made millionaires that republicans seem to believe roam the nation like the ginormous bison herds of 200 years ago.

it's kind of an important question since the republican party is the party that has decided that small government is better; except when it comes to telling a woman that she will have that unwanted baby, whether or not she wants it, or can even afford it.

and btw, another way to reduce social services costs would be to put an end to the wholesale export of jobs to other countries because it makes a better bottom line for the effin' multinational corporations that have had the american worker's balls in a vice for over 20 years.

so i reckon there's a bit of blame that goes to the freemarket happy, regulatory hating, tax stingy right wingers in business, don't ya think ?

apparently, the majority of californians like the democratic led legislatures. they just increased their seats last fall. jerry brown was the governor when i moved here in the '70s. since then it's been deukmejian (r), wilson (r), gray davis (d) and ahnoldt (r). in fact, except for davis, brown, brown's dad and olson, nearly every other cali guber has been a republican.

but it seems to me that the down turn in cali's fortunes has more to do with the end of the cold war, underfunding of aerospace, production high taling it to canada and it's film tax credits.

California's state work force grew despite budget woes and cut promises
By Jon Ortiz and Phillip Reese
[email protected]

Published: Monday, Mar. 16, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 16A

California state government's full-time work force continues to grow despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order to freeze hiring amid a historic budget shortfall.

From June 2008 to February 2009, most state agencies either increased or kept the same number of full-time employees, according to a Bee analysis of personnel data. The state also failed to lay off as many part-time employees during the crisis as promised by the governor.

While legislators and Schwarzenegger debated how to close a $40 billion budget deficit, 66 state agencies saw a net gain of full-time employees, 35 kept the same number of employees and 55 lost employees, data from the state controller's office show.

The overall number of full-time state employees increased by roughly 2,000, or 1 percent, excluding the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, which always shrinks sharply outside of fire season, the figures show.

While the increase is modest compared with other years, it clashes with the belief that the state work force must shrink to meet the current economic downturn and resulting drop in state revenue.

Last month, the two leading Republican candidates for governor criticized the budget deal because it relied, in part, on tax increases and not on substantially reducing the state work force.

Ted Costa of People's Advocate, a government watchdog group, said slowing bureaucratic growth isn't good enough.

"Government needs to be cut, squeezed and streamlined. It needs to get smaller," Costa said. "Instead, the governor is doing stylistic things, like getting rid of lower-paid part-time help, instead of doing something substantial."

But Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the trend shows the governor successfully tamped down government growth, especially since the recession has increased demand for services such as unemployment assistance and state-sponsored health care.

The Employment Development Department, which handles unemployment claims, added 101 full-time employees, a 1.3 percent increase, during the eight months analyzed by The Bee. Its part-time pool shrank 12 percent, down 110 positions, the data show.

"The fact that we've been able to maintain the overall size of state government while demand on state services has increased, demonstrates that the governor has been able to make cuts where we can," McLear said.

Some of those cuts came last summer after Schwarzenegger ordered layoffs of what were then estimated to be 10,000 part-time and temporary employees to ease the state's general fund budget woes. In fact, the net loss of part-time employees during the crisis was 6,300 " less than two-thirds the amount predicted by the governor.

And increases in full-time state employment " again, excluding Cal Fire " progressed steadily throughout the budget crisis. Most months between June and February saw net gains of a few hundred employees.

At any given time, roughly 1 percent of the state's work force is on leave. That number fluctuates only slightly from month to month or year to year, according to a Bee analysis of several years' worth of data from the controller's office.

Some individual agency employment figures may be affected slightly by transfers. Over the course of a year, about 5 percent of the state's work force transfers from one department to another, the Bee's analysis found.

It's hard to shrink government bureaucracies quickly, so it's no surprise that California's full-time work force continued to grow slightly during rough times, said Guy Peters professor of American government at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of "The Politics of Bureaucracy."

"One person's fat is another person's program," said Peters, adding that most state workers are tied to particular services, so policymakers often can't shrink payroll without reducing programs.

Some government services are mandated, Peters said, making them especially tough to cut. Also, Peters noted, state worker unions in California are strong and crossing them isn't easy.

The California Highway Patrol added roughly 275 full-time employees between June and February, state figures show. That's a growth rate of roughly 3 percent.

CHP officials had long ago obtained funding for new officers, and three new officer academy classes graduated during that period.

"We hadn't seen an increase in staffing in 30-plus years," said CHP spokeswoman Jaime Coffee. "California has grown. There are more registered vehicles, so we were understaffed on patrol."

"The bigger the (CHP) presence out there, people tend to slow down," she added.

Another CHP officer academy class will graduate in May, Coffee said, predicting further growth in the CHP's ranks. Most of the CHP's budget comes from vehicle registration and driver's license fees, instead of the general fund.

Cal Fire dropped more than 2,400 employees from June through January, but just a couple hundred of those job cuts were related to the budget, fire officials said.

"We have approximately 2,200 seasonal firefighters," said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire spokesman, adding that the department's ranks will likely increase again during the summer wildfire season.

Link: http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/1702192.html?mi_rss=Top%20Stories

The rest?

Education, health care, unemployment, housing, welfare...

Is this how you grow 2.5 million jobs, as Obama has been fond of saying?