Who’s Going To Bail Out California?

By duyemura on February 19th, 2009

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Well, they’ve done it.  California legislature finally breached a partisan impasse and passed the state’s 2009/2010 budget.  It’s almost laughable that one of the many reasons that fueled the recall of Grey Davis (which put Arnold Schwarzenegger in office) was the 2003 California budget crisis and mismanagement.  Drastic measures were taken to fill the $41 billion budget deficit California plans to run through June 2010.  YES, I SAID $41 BILLION.

So what’s the low down on California’s much discussed budget?  In order to balance our heavily lopsided books the following small concessions had to be made. Let’s take a gander:

• $15 billion in spending cuts. Including schools. Yay.
• $11.4 billion in NEW BORROWING. Great.
• $12.8 billion in NEW TAXES. Wonderful.
• $2 billion from federal stimulus funds from President Obama’s stimuls package signed on Tuesday.

I’m absolutely delighted about the budget passing and the great job the Legislature has done. This is a historic budget. – Arnold Schwarzenegger

Damn right it’s historic.  A historic failure.  When you are delighted to raise taxes, cut vital human services, deeply reduce spending for our schooling systems AND add to our massive debt load all in one fell swoop, I guess you can classify it as historic in nature.

The only upside to this passing legislature today is some 20,000+ state workers who were slated to get laid off, didn’t.  I imagine the legislators didn’t want that hitting the newswires and pressed it through.

At least now I don’t feel so bad about running a negative cashflow household.  It seems I’m right on par with the rest of the world.

Read all about the nitty gritty of the California 2009 State Budget here.