

California to "aggressively seek new federal assistance" - cwan
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/01/california-to-aggressively-seek-new.html

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cabalamat
California should just spend less or tax more. If they can't, that's the fault
of Californians not the federal govetrnment. (My understanding is that the
root cause of the situation is that it's hard to raise taxes in california due
to proposition 13, but easy to increase spending commitments through referenda
-- can any Californians comment?)

~~~
earl
It's worth noting that CA is basically getting ripped off, as we receive only
0.79 for every $1 we pay in federal taxes. See:
[http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Blog/ftsbs-
larg...](http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Blog/ftsbs-large.jpg)

Also, there are a variety of problems at work here, in no order: 1 - property
taxes are basically frozen as long as you own your home, eviscerating the most
stable form of local tax revenue for cities and counties (and not to mention
screwing any newcomers); 2 - government via direct balloting initiatives,
freezing spending on various popular causes which cannot be changed via the
legislature unless the ballot initiative specifically allows this (and none,
to my knowledge, do). Note this essentially freezes certain spending, which
means that when cuts come, other areas have to bear far more than their
proportionate burden; 3 - the same law that created situation #1 also requires
2/3 vote to raise taxes; 4 - enough republicans in the senate from
conservative areas of CA to basically veto all tax increases; 5 - long term
mismanagement of the states finances, increasingly relying on borrowing to pay
the bills, which is now starting to come due; 6 - term limits, which both
inhibit professionalization of the legislature while simultaneously insuring
that legislaters aren't around to be confronted with the consequences of their
laws; 7 - horrific effects of the financial crisis, particularly the housing
bubble, as the cost of even the most modest homes rose far above the median
incomes (see commuter cities where 15+% of houses have been in foreclosure!);
8 - a populace which seems unwilling to bring the costs of desired government
services in line with our net tax proceeds, though the fact that the
politicians hasn't been blunt about delivering this message has massively
compounded this problem; 9 - as mentioned, CA is getting utterly screwed on
federal taxes; 10 - it's also worth noting that CA also has a very powerful
prison industrial complex that is seemingly immune to reform, and we bear huge
costs related to the US' retarded drug policy which goes out of it's way to
line the pockets of both the police and prison guards while not actually, say,
reducing the costs to society in any way, along with the moral burden of
ruining so many peoples' lives; 11 - Arnold Schwarzenegger -- the man is a
venal moron, directly responsible (via the cuts to the car taxes), for
simultaneously cutting tax income while increasing spending; 12 - effects of
the financial crisis, which have dramatically raised borrowing costs for the
state. Note this is even after the effects of borrowing to pay bills; the
state borrows to pay bills in the normal course of operations until tax
revenues come in towards the end of the year; this suddenly costs a lot more.
13 - etc, etc; i'm sure there are more, but I think these are the primary
drivers

