What did Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislators do to prepare for and respond to this crisis? Nothing, nada, zilch. Instead of developing of plan to stem mounting costs, to issue municipal bonds to fund a portion of the shortfall and to temporarily increase tax revenues (with an automatic sunset), the bickering continued and the June 30 fiscal year ended without a budget in place for next fiscal year.Opposing cuts will involve proposing better budget fixes that the Gov's all-cuts dogma. These fairly obvious suggestions, including the temporary (and carefully targeted) tax increases, are a good place to start.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Pushing for an Overall Fix
Lots of UC folks assume that we have to cut everything because the state is out of money. It's not, and I'll say more about this pretty soon. In the meantime, this Seeking Alpha piece is worth reading for its unstinting hostility towards the political leadership that has managed to turn a recession into a crisis that will make the recession worse. One key paragraph reads,
Chris, Is there anything specific you think we should say or ask at the town hall this afternoon? A small group met last night to discuss strategy and I am sure that one or more of us would be happy to speak on your behalf if you thought it would be useful to do so. I'll be interested to see your comments on the putative state budget shortfalls.
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