Time for another Texas vs. California roundup. First up: The man who moved from one to the other:
(Hat tip: Willisms, City Journal, others.)
Archive for the ‘Budget’ Category
Texas vs. California Roundup: October 2, 2012
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012Dear California: You Know That Money Will Be Wasted, and You Know Those Tax Hikes Will Be Permanent
Friday, September 28th, 2012I’ve got another Texas vs. California piece coming around on the guitar, but I thought there was
Hold on to your hats, but it seems that California voters might, just might, be catching on that the Democrats who run California’s state government are wasting their money.
I will now wait for the indignant shouts of incredulous outrage to die down.
Support for Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan for billions of dollars in tax hikes on the November ballot is slipping amid public anxiety about how politicians spend money, but voters still favor the proposal, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.
Well, I did say “might.”
The findings suggest that voters are leery of sending more cash to Sacramento in the wake of a financial scandal at the parks department, spiraling costs for a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project to connect Northern and Southern California and ill-timed legislative pay raises.
If voters aren’t willing to stop spending for a $100 billion train to nowhere that everyone know will never be completed, and which would lose even more money every year if it was, when will they?
Brown’s measure would temporarily raise income tax rates on high earners for seven years and boost the state sales tax by a quarter-cent for four years in a bid to avoid steep cuts in funds for schools and other programs.
Note that word: “temporary.”
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the way politics actually works knows that there’s no such thing as a “temporary” tax hike. The only thing that prevents Democrats (and establishment Republicans) from spending every cent of every tax collected and more is booting them out of office. Raising taxes simply ensures that they’ll spend all the new revenue and additional money they don’t have on top of that. And with the fiscal tsunami California is facing from bloated government, spiraling debt, and gold-plated public employee union pensions that will bankrupt the state, those “temporary” taxes will never be repealed. Ever.
And two or four years down the line, the next Democratic governor will be asking the voters to approve another “temporary” tax hike…
Texas vs. California: First Day of Fall Edition
Friday, September 21st, 2012Time for another Texas vs. California round-up of how the Lone Star State is kicking the not-so-Golden State’s ass in just about every measure except signing NBA free-agents.
Proposed Romney Ad: Burying the American Dream
Thursday, September 20th, 2012FADE IN: Long shot of funeral.
CUT TO: Shot of Obama in a black suit standing near an open grave.
Obama: The American Dream enjoyed over 200 years of life.
CUT TO: Men with Obama For America t-shirts with shovels picking up dirt from a pile labeled DEFICIT SPENDING and tossing it down into the grave.
Obama: But it’s time for us to bury it today. It’s outlived its usefulness.
CUT TO: Several young children at the bottom of the grave, already partially buried, as dirt rains down on their heads.
Child: Wait, we’re not dead! Stop burying us!
CUT To: Obama.
Obama: It was a fine dream, but we have to move on to another dream: Of a government welfare state present at every moment of every American’s lives…
CUT TO: Men shoveling in more dirt.
Obama: From the cradle…
CUT TO: Children in hole.
Obama:…to the grave.
Children: Stop! Just give us a chance! We want our dreams too!
CUT TO: Obama.
Obama: Farewell American dream. It was nice while it last.
CUT TO: Children in grave.
Children: Stop! Stop!
CUT TO: Long shot of funeral, as the men continue to fill the grave.
Children: (screaming) STOOOOOOOP!
FADE OUT
Anyone know the best way to send this to Romney, Restore Our Future, or American Crossroads?
Billionaire Wants Ft. Worth Taxpayers to Pay For His Hobbies
Wednesday, September 12th, 2012Ft. Worth has a $49 million budget deficit. So they’re doing the responsible thing that Texas governments do when faced with budget shortfalls: Cutting back on spending. (Maybe someone should tell California (or Europe) about this radical approach, since no one there seems to be able to cut a budget except at the edge of bankruptcy. And frequently not even then.)
The City of Fort Worth is looking to cut the arts program by 25% which would bring the Arts Council budget to just over $537,000.
Businessman Robert Bass and his wife have are against the budget cuts and argued for funding to be restored before the city council.
Robert Bass is a multi-billionaire. He could pay the amount cut out of his own pocket and it would literally be less than how much his personal wealth fluctuates on the ups and downs of the stock market on any given day. But instead of ponying up, Bass believes that Ft. Worth taxpayers should foot the bill.
You might think that a Texas oil billionaire would be a big Republican contributor. You’d be wrong. Beneficiaries of his contributions in this cycle have been Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, Ben Nelson, and Claire McCaskill. (And his wife Anne was equally generous to Democrats.)
Government exists to carry out those tasks that cannot be carried out by non-governmental organizations (defense, courts, etc.). Government should let individuals voluntarily fund the arts out of their own pockets rather than forcing taxpayers to pick up the bill. If Robert Bass wants art organizations in Ft. Worth to be funded, all he has to do is write a check, not demand taxpayers pay for his hobbies.
LinkSwarm for September 7, 2012
Friday, September 7th, 2012Still trying to get back in the swing of things, so here’s a LinkSwarm for a lazy Friday:
Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.
As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.
Californians Can’t Even Stop Spending When They’re Actually in Bankruptcy
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012The City Council of San Bernardino, California failed to pass budget cuts at their meeting Tuesday, despite the city already being in bankruptcy.
After a meeting that lasted more than nine hours and stretched past midnight, the San Bernardino City Council failed to pass a plan for drastic budget reductions, an initial step in the city’s bankruptcy proceedings.
The proposed “pre-pendency plan” included $22.4 million in cuts, achieved by measures including slashing more than 100 jobs and closing three of the four city libraries. It would not cover the entire $45.8-million budget shortfall, but city staff called the plan a necessary first step.
Proposed cuts to the Fire Department became an irreconcilable sticking point. Twenty positions in the department were slated to be eliminated without layoffs, and the plan included an option of rotating closures at fire stations.
Instead of voting on the budget plan as a whole, Councilman Chas Kelley made a proposal to vote on an alternate plan for the Fire Department that was backed by the firefighters union, and to direct staff to seek bids on a proposal to contract out some of the city’s trash services.
The vote, taken after midnight, passed 4 to 3 but was promptly vetoed by Mayor Pat Morris, who had called that plan “irresponsible” and an “almost slavish adoption of a union proposal without any analysis.”
Maybe they can delay things long enough that repo men are actually carting furniture out of the council chambers before they vote…
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Texas vs. California: Dog Days of August Edition
Monday, August 27th, 2012It’s late August, and California’s slide toward insolvency continues apace.
Texas Vs. California: August 16, 2012
Thursday, August 16th, 2012Looks like California has done such a good dog of screwing the pooch that I may have to start doing these roundups weekly:
Things to Like About the Paul Ryan Vice Presidential Nomination
Sunday, August 12th, 2012Just in case you were trapped in a mine, Mitt Romney selected Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate. There are many things to like about the pick, but I’d like to focus on just a few: