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Posted by David Sherman on Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 19:14:58 :
In Reply to: Re: OT, but it affects my pocketbook... posted by MoparNorm on Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 18:37:16 :
The notion that nobody will put out a fire if it's on one of the mandatory days off seems pretty far-fetched to me, though I wouldn't put it past some spiteful high-level bureaucrats to implement their mandatory budget cuts in the most unpopular way possible just to make a point. It's like when the school board threatens to cut math and football if we don't pass the school levy.
Basically, California, like lots of states and local government, has added all kinds of frills, niceties, and worthwhile programs to its budget while times were good. Not too many people complained too much about the cost or how well the money was being spent as long as money was rolling in. But now that they have to cut back a little bit, everybody thinks their particular favorite program shouldn't be cut. Everybody thinks their particular program is indispensible. The average person says "budget cuts" like it was a cuss-word.
Right now, the interest rate on California bonds is higher than that on Mexican bonds, meaning investors think California is more likely than Mexico to default on its debt. States can't print money like the feds can, and they generally can't borrow money to cover ordinary operating expenses. That means when the budget doesn't balance, they have to cut spending or raise taxes. The reason they're in such a quagmire is they're still not willing to admit that they have to do either one.
The way I see it, when a government thinks it can avoid raising taxes in a general way, by adding "user fees" and tweaking some obscure taxes that most people don't see, they're still in denial. Same thing when they think they can solve the expense side of the equation by ordering a 10% across-the board cut in pay or staffing, which seems to be the first thing they always do. What they really need to do, but they never will, is cut out entire programs that were nice to have when the money was flowing like water, but aren't really necessary, and then go through the rest of the departments cutting out the seat-warmers, patronage hires, incompetents, nincompoops and other dead wood so that whatever job that department is supposed to do gets done a lot more efficiently than it is now. Of course union contracts prohibit the sort of general cleanup that would be mandatory in an private business that needed to survive a downturn in the economy.
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