But seriously, I think Neo’s got this exactly right. The voters don’t want the higher taxes – but they’ll scream if their own pet state benefit happens to be cut. That’s why come next election, they’ll send the same crowd back to Sacramento, the budget will be shattered again, and the whole process will repeat every few years.

The only way that will change is if the GOP hammers at this relentlessly from now until November of 2010, and even then only if they run the right candidates. I’m not optimistic.

You have been infected with the Filthy Blog Pox. Be sure to spread the wealth.

California’s out of control spending has led to a budget crisis. Maybe California really is the future of the country, just like we always say we are.
……

In a case of belated “I told you so”, former Gov. Gray Davis sounded vindicated.

“We all want a free lunch, but unfortunately that doesn’t exist,” said former Gov. Gray Davis, whose 2003 recall stemmed largely from a budget crisis brought on by the dot-com bust. For decades, Davis said, Californians have been “papering over this fundamental reality that the state has been living beyond its means.”

Gee, you could change “Californians” to “Americans” and it would sound like at slap at the Congress and POTUS.

Frankly, California is just a microcosm of the nation … they want every possible service but don’t want to pay for them. Frankly, the taxes nation wide have been ratcheted up to the point that we will have to expand the tax base below “middle income” workers or lose some services. Taxing the rich isn’t going to do anything but drive them to another state.

This first manifestation of the Margaret Thatcher attributed quote .. “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” will point the way to the future.

I’m not optimistic. I expect more “smoke n mirrors.” Unfortunately, the state constitution doesn’t say that all seats of the state government should go back up for election when faced with a bankruptcy and all pensions for elective positions should be revoked.

Bottom line .. the price of failure is big enough.

We just have to pull our heads out of our collective … oranges every so often.

ensured money to schools in future years

This is the biggest crock of s*** that ever came out of the mouth of man. When Iowa legalized their lottery, they said that a portion of the money earned would go to schools, they said the same thing about the lotto, then finally to ensure that Iowans passed riverboat gambling they said that Iowa needed this to help the schools. You would think that by now, Iowa would have THEE finest buildings on the planet for each and every school, but no, they don’t, the schools still have to beg for money for rather basic needs. When ever a politician needs to pass a new law to help the schools, what he means is, that he is going to raid the schools budget and if you want to keep them above water, you will need to pass this new tax.

In Illinois’ case, over half of their budget woes is corruption. They are still looking for the 8 million dollars that was intended for bike paths in this area. No clue where it went too. And the real problem is the Republicans are in cahoots with the Dems in this corruption. This is why I won’t donate to the Rep party locally either. I told them I was tired of them wasting my money on idiotic candidates. And now they want to pass video poker to get them out of there budget troubles. Ahhhhh Hello stupid Democrats in Illinois government, there is only so much gambling money out there. Maybe tho, if this video poker thing works out they will be able to increase the amount of welfare people get so they can spend more money on video poker. – Lorica