Tim, July 2 at 2:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

To give some balance- Government can not keep adding new programs, paying gov’t employees more and more benifits without breaking the back of its citizens.
..................................

I would be interested in what you think are unnecessary programs, or where you see these increases in benefits of which you speak. It is fine to seek solutions to excess spending, important even, but even more important is posting actual truth.

I always read these screeds about govt waste with fingers pointing at the workers when agriculture pays little for our water,agribusinesses get huge subsidies, corporations use mountains of loopholes to avoid paying a fair tax.

Sure cut salaries, slash benefits, end social programs, and allow the real theft of our revenues to go unabated.

Jct: There’s nothing wrong with small denomination California State IOUs if I or anyone else can pay their taxes with them. When Argentina’s government workers were faced with cuts, their unions talked 6 state governments into paying them with small-denomination state bonds which could be used to pay for state services and taxes and which everyone accepted as useful currency. Best of all, when the local currency is pegged to the Time Standard of Money (how many dollars per unskilled hour child labor) Hours earned locally can be intertraded with other timebanks globally! In 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights in Europe with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours.
U.N. Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments is for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture. See my banking systems engineering analysis at http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers
Too bad California State IOUs won’t be accepted in payment for state taxes and services like state bonds were in Argentina. Too bad California State IOUs will be denominated too big to use as local currency. Too bad Argentina people were smart enough to avoid the tent-cities catastrophe and California people are too stupid to follow their example.

RAE, June 30 at 10:14 am #

Gosh… if so many of you Californians HATE Arnold, why on earth did you elect him?

Do you honestly believe that the opinions expressed here represent a majority of the voters of the state?..silly.

Are governors of California somehow immune to the wishes, not only of the people, but of all the elected representatives of the people in the legislatures? Why are not YOUR reps controlling the governor?

Certainly they are, just as our President is immune to the wishes of the people, as the California Legislature and the Federal Legislature are also unconcerned with that will. Reps controlling Governors??...someone is failing to understand how government works, or doesnt.

If Arnold is calling all the shots, WHY WASTE ALL THE TIME AND EFFORT AND GOING TO ALL THE EXPENSE OF ELECTING ANYONE ELSE?

Possibly for the very same reason you are wasting the time of this forum I imagine.

Next time, if there is a next time, try electing someone with a successful track record in politics instead of someone who looks and sounds pretty. Damn there are a lot of Americans who confuse FAME with COMPETENCE.

One like Reagan perhaps, or Obama maybe? Dude, lots of sarcasm little in the way of enlightenment.

Gosh… if so many of you Californians HATE Arnold, why on earth did you elect him?

Are governors of California somehow immune to the wishes, not only of the people, but of all the elected representatives of the people in the legislatures? Why are not YOUR reps controlling the governor?

If Arnold is calling all the shots, WHY WASTE ALL THE TIME AND EFFORT AND GOING TO ALL THE EXPENSE OF ELECTING ANYONE ELSE?

Next time, if there is a next time, try electing someone with a successful track record in politics instead of someone who looks and sounds pretty. Damn there are a lot of Americans who confuse FAME with COMPETENCE.

“California is ungovernable. This is what happens after decades of polarization, between the right and the left, there is no center, and without a center you cannot govern”

No, of course California is governable. Its just that the far-right is in control right now,

thanks to Arnold.

What “polarization”? Ask Folktruther about the pseudo-progressives all over the State.

John T: do not forget all the politicians who are the biggest parasites of all, what actually what have they ever done for all that money and perks they get?

And as for work or die, first you have to have jobs, aside from only those who want volunteers, as that does not pay the bills.

Your budget figures education 40% welfare 30%, are maybe partially right. First you have to take the whole budget, not just select parts as you have. The whole budget is 100%, first the military expense is well over 50% of the original 100. At the last federal government budget meeting i attended, less than 5% of the original budget was used for ALL of the education, health and human services-that means welfare. So you need to take that 5% and then further divide it up, so if you have 5 dollars of this 100 dollar budget, $2 goes to education, $1.50 goes to all the welfare programs which include: food stamps, medicare, medicaid, other health programs. emergency shelter, emergency utility, health department funding, emergency food and medicines, foster care programs, adult foster care programs and many more. So you really are uninformed as to the real expenses. If you really want to cut the parasites off of welfare you need to “cut the head off of the snake” and go to the top and start with corporate and political welfare, then the bankers and work you way done from the real drain on the system and taxpayers backs.

Diamond, you forgot to mention how Texas taxpayers helped pay for Bush’s massive return on a piddly investment.

@ hippie4ever

I’ve a friend on SSI who faces a significant cut in benefits that were inadequate before. He has been losing weight he cannot afford to lose, and now we have to chip in & help while we ourselves are being squeezed.

I think that this cut in benefits is just the beginning of a trend. I see it possible in the next few years, that retirees will see large cuts in their benefits. Our government has mismanaged the economy very badly. Industry in mining, farming, and manufacturing has been closing down. The WTO, GATT, and NAFTA have bled this country dry of jobs. Your friend on SSI might have to find a sideline of some type. Does he have any family? Old folks will have to move in with their children. I see this as inevitable, because most people are too comfortable to fight for change.

G.Anderson, June 29 at 3:09 am #

California is ungovernable. This is what happens after decades of polarization, between the right and the left, there is no center, and without a center you cannot govern.

......................

Your criticism applies to the entire nation, not just California. There is , in fact, a center, it is just overlooked and unheard amidst the raucous nature of American politics. People go about their daily lives , working every day , raising families, and voting every two years, millions of them, but noone cares about them any longer, excepting for that once every two year cycle.

California is ungovernable. This is what happens after decades of polarization, between the right and the left, there is no center, and without a center you cannot govern.

Don’t blame Arnold, both the left and the right paid for votes with programs that favored those that voted the way they wanted. The Romans called it “Bread and Circuses”, we’re no different now. That was what happened at the end of the Roman Empire.

California has been living on borrowed time for decades, ever since welfare reform stripped the wealth and property from middle class families to support family law courts.

That was the stake driven into the heart of this state that started our decline. Because without middle class families, with money to buy property and disposable income, you cannot have a sufficient tax base. 

It was ok to gut the middle class because they couldn’t qualify as victims, or couldn’t give millions in Campaign contributions to right wing nut jobs.

Now the middle class is gone, and theres no one to clean up the mess. Many thousands more are leaving everyday. Because your schools suck, and your houses are unaffordable - even at post crash prices. Even, two income families can’t afford them. But it was ok, to price the middle class out of homes, because it was the only way to make any money after industry left for elsewhere. 

Without a center, and that means using reason, instead of ideology, only one thing will happen. Total and complete anarchy and Chaos.

The only other real option is to divide California in half. Northern California, and Southern California.

RIP California.

What’s he supposed to do? Ca can’t print money like the fed.

CA teacher and prison guard unions are examples of self serving monster organisations bent on their own enrichment over and above education and public safety. Arnold has balls to confront these self serving, self perpetuating money suckers.

This is nothing but another form of corruption. And Arnold is not the only one peddling this snake oil. The WTO, for example has enacted strong intellectual property rights which force poor countries to pay the prices charged by western companies for drugs under patent and to pay high prices for new plant varieties…in 2003 the United States vetoed (in the UN) a proposal supported by 143 other countries to recognize this and waive patent protection across the board.

Then there’s the International Monetary Fund: its primary mission is to prevent poor countries defaulting on loans regardless of the deprivation among the most vulnerable caused by its structural adjustment packages which force debtor countries to slash their already inadequate programs for public health and education and to open their markets to cheap foreign imports, thus destroying the kinds of local employment on which many of their workers depend. Does any of this ring a bell, California?

I find it amusing that anyone thinks the poor, the ill and the under-educated are ‘parasites’. Consider the career of George W. Bush: Bush was given what’s called ‘a gentleman’s C’ at Yale. Which means he failed and was given his degree because of who his father was. Most of his fortune was made selling his stock in Harken Oil on 22.6. 90. He made $835,807. Two months later Harken posted losses of $23.2 million. It helped that the Securities Exchange Commission appointed by Bush’s father declined to prosecute Bush II for insider trading, of which he was guilty. The second plank of Bush’s fortune came from more skullduggery. He and his partners in the Texas Rangers baseball team arranged for Texas authorities to expropriate private land to allow investors to build their new stadium. Any owners who resisted or balked at the low prices being offered had their land condemned and expropriated by force of law. They took 270 acres of land even though only 17 acres were needed for the ballpark. The rest was used by Bush and co for commercial development and was most of the basis of Bush’s personal fortune. Now you tell me, who are the parasites? I think it’s pretty obvious that those millionaires and billionaires who don’t pay their taxes and the crooks on Wall Street are the real parasites and those at the bottom of the heap are their victims.

Thanks Arnold for turning our state into a Banana Republic similar to Somoza’s Nicaragua or Trujillo’s Domonican Republic.

Thanks Rae for the comment to tman. What a sorry excuse for a human he is. He is obviously a repukelican.

I do agree with his comment that too many people are on the dole,like the corporate welfare ho’s,you know them, the military industrial complex, wall street bankers,lobbyists, neocorps and don’t forget the politicians, especially the repukelican ones. They are rewarded far to much as it is now and need to be cut off without a dime now. Then maybe the rest of us would have a fighting chance at a decent life without leaving out-ancestors-yet-to-come saddled with the debt caused by these corrupt people.

The Repugly Governors are sure a great bunch aren’t they? Pay raises and hand-outs for state Officials or business and nothing for the people. Here in Hawaii, the Gov is one of the few R’s in Government [elected]. Under our laws, she has sole right to decide whether to spend the money appropriated by the legislature, Schools, Medical Care [State run im much of the state], the University, parks, social services, including aid for children, disabled, and elderly poor are withheld, at her whim.

State elected officials got a 34% raise this year. State employees, public school teachers, the University System, and hospitals are all facing furloughs which will mean a 14% pay-cut, and their insurance rates went up. Remember, many nurses and medical tech, and all the teachers are State Employees in Hawaii. Governor Lingle declares she has the right to abrogate union contracts at will. Interesting!

At the same time, the state has over 2 billion dollars in various rainy day funds that Lingle refuses to touch. She has vetoed attempts to do so at every opportunity. Lingle never saw a commercial proposition by a large corporation that didn’t look great. She breaks the environmental rules to encourage the business climate. Yet people looking for jobs here, and now, that pay well, can take a cold potato and wait [that an old saying from the days when women and children ate last].

The Hawaii State Ferry that just went bankrupt rather than meet the requirements of an Environmental Impact Study is a good example. We put up 40 mil to improve harbors so they could dock. We provided sucurity against the local protesters. And at the urging of the Gov, we wrote a special law that exempted them from the requirement of doing the study. We also guaranteed loans for the start-up, and committed to provide the infrastructure. Too bad it was all unconstitutional, which led to the bankruptcy…

you are right, Clash, California has BIG political problems (and a mostly corrupt media) it has been ignoring for too long, and now it can’t.

But one of the biggest problems is Arnold himself. We are faced in California with a leader with the scruples of GWB, and the same amoral, far right-wing power base behind him.

We are in trouble, but at least we could begin by seeing the problem.

Arnold does not have an ounce of principle in that steroid-enhanced body, now atrophied.

What has not changed is that Arnold considers himself number one in his priorities and to hell with everything else.

I sure as hell hope “tman” never gets to run things. Talk about a narrow minded, mean spirited, little person! And an ignorant one at that.

It is the duty of governments in the U.S. to ensure the continued existence of predatory capital on the backs of the poor.

The governor of California is correct in his thinking.Its time for the free ride to end in this country. The motto of this country should be (YOU BREED THEM YOU FEED THEM). All welfare should end. This only breeds more welfare ho’s and more criminals. The death penalty should be carried out in all capital murder convictions and all prisoners made to perform hard manual labor every day. Food stamps are another luxury that should be eliminated. They are mostly used for trading for drugs and an excuse for not working. To many people are on the dole in this country and the country can no longer afford them. We need less population. Eliminate the slackers and the U.S. will prosper once more.

This governor before taking office met with Enron and other energy companies, we will never know what was discussed.  Took office stopped lawsuits California had with Enron and all, over rip-offs.  Not once did this governor show an ounce of creativity in office, never improved the state in anyway, and will leave office with things considerable worse than he found it.  Think the Times will report any of this?

ardee;

You are quite correct in your observation that above Tejon the farmers control most everything and have since they murdered most of the indigenous peoples during the mid to late 1800’s, as described by the military accounts of record.

As far as Water rights the state has made some inroads to gain control just in the past few weeks I would submit shutting down the pumps to the aqueduct to save the smelt.

The make believe I refer to is not of Hollywood fantasies although they do use this and other media to proliferate the culture of make believe. This is the real stumbling block to the changes that are necessary.

The the culture I refer to one dominated by the hierarchy, used to control and abuse all that comes to deify it. In this culture community,morals, ethics, justice, and life itself are all most always overridden by economics.

I’ve a friend on SSI who faces a significant cut in benefits that were inadequate before. He has been losing weight he cannot afford to lose, and now we have to chip in & help while we ourselves are being squeezed. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A RETHUGLICAN IS ELECTED TO PRIVATE—OH EXCUSE ME—PUBLIC OFFICE.

Hopefully the rest of the country can see the damage done by reichwing ideologues who lack compassion but are endowed with amazing greed and mean spiritedness. This steroid case has completely ruined what was a beautiful social experiment. I doubt we will recover & I suspect it’s all downhill from here on.

Soon we will envy the dead.

The governor readily admits that he sees the crisis as a chance to make big changes to government—to “reform the system,” he said Friday—with proposals he has struggled to advance in the past.

Among them: reorganizing state bureaucracy, eliminating patronage boards and curbing fraud in social services that Democrats have traditionally protected. The governor also would like to move past the budget crisis to reach a deal on California’s water problems that has so far eluded him.

.....................

Ahnold is a unique and talented liar. After his campaign stated that, because he was so wealthy ( personal fortune of over one billion dollars) he would never have to go to special interests for money he collected more such monies than any candidate in history…...I am uncertain as to whether Obama has broken that record.

This man may be right about state Democrats protecting those who profit from our governance but he merely seeks to replace the current protectors with himself and his party.

Clash, You overestimate Californians allegiance to Hollywood, by far. The state is split longitudinally, with agriculture , not Hollywood, holding sway above Santa Barbara.

You may be aware of the movement to split California in twain, a movement begun in the forties with Northern California and Southern Oregon becoming the State of Jefferson. That movement is not exactly dead today. If one travels north on I5 one may see, just after reaching Yreka, a sign reading welcome to the state of Jefferson…..that sign is in good repair.

Much of the myth of California politics and tendencies is just that, only myth. Water rights and crops rule this state, and with an iron fist!

And, the people continue to chant, “We are number ONE!”

The disconnect continues to astonish me. #1 in what?

I live in NYC, and I see the new homeless on the streets every day. Recently, I saw a mother with a very small child. I have no idea what happened to them.

If you walk from east-to-west on the streets, and north and south on the Avenues, each day more storefronts are empty. In fact, entire blocks are empty of businesses—from one end of the city to the other. This has to be a serious crisis for New York City, but I don’t hear anyone reporting much about it, nor do I hear our leaders, or supposed leaders, exploring serious solutions. Wall Street, and the banks, are up-and-running, with our money, but what about us, the people who are citizens of this country?

Mayor Bloomberg chose to devote $93 million to retraining Wall Street bankers, with federal funds, as I recall, while employees working at the libraries, and other public funded institutions are currently fearing for their jobs and lives. They are also cutting services. Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t want the bankers to leave the city. Keep in mind that these mostly white men he wants to retain in NYC, and retrain, are already highly educated.

Recently, I learned that the Director or CEO of the New York City libraries is paid $800,000 per year. I can’t seem to find out if he is taking a cut in pay due to the financial crisis that daily is throwing more people out of work, which, in turn, throws more people out of their homes when they can’t pay their rent or mortgage.

When I lost my job, in December of 2006, I attempted to get some help, but I was one of those people who fell through the cracks. I was too old, too young, too educated, not educated enough, too experienced, not experienced enough, and I wasn’t sick, nor did I have problems with alcohol or drugs, etc. I walked to various agencies and foundations only to find myself out of luck. I was on my own, and really, nobody cared.

Evidently, the fearless, or fearsome, leaders of California don’t care either. This is so sad! And, this crisis is a full-scale catastrophe for this country, and for us, the citizens. Without we citizens, none of our elected representatives would receive a paycheck. They owe us something in return. They work for us, we don’t work for them. Our system is completely broken.

I doubt that the Employee Free Choice Act will be passed by our complicit congressional—elected by the people, we the citizens—representatives. Obama’s silence on this issue is very telling! I have absolutely no faith in him, and I was never as enamored with him as some of my friends were.

Again, I am so sad, but angry, too—albeit feelling sorry doesn’t get us much of anywhere, does it?

This what you want this what you get. Californians were so ready to blame every one but GWB and his cronies from Enron for the problems that started all of this they ran to the make believe once again.

Pull your heads out of were the sun don’t shine, it will be ugly at first but once your in the light of day it sure is easier to find a direction to start out on.

California State government and and the fools who run it are from your make believe culture.  Hollywood is not real, your not in a movie, there is a script but you will never see it, and there is no good ending.

Stop listening to cooperate media, talk radio, escaping into fiction the world is out there and life is a test.

for those who don’t know (and the press is decidedly in his favor on this issue),

he has taken so much money away from public education in California,

that some school districts across the State are in real danger of going bankrupt.

Of course his ulterior motive has always been to attack the Teacher’s Unions and the other unions affiliated with public education.

He is a Son-of-a-bitch Nazi, and definitely IS using this crisis (which he aided) to push forward a right-wing agenda,

one needs only to look at what he is doing to Public Eduction.

I condemn not only him, but the journalists who have aided his way to power, a copious number.