ROLL UP! ROLL UP! ROLL UP! The Great California Garage Sale

The state of California is operating at a loss of $500 MILLION a WEEK. They expect this "yard sale" to raise a few hundred thousand dollars at best.

Band-aid on a severed artery, anyone?

Don said:

The state of California is operating at a loss of $500 MILLION a WEEK. They expect this "yard sale" to raise a few hundred thousand dollars at best.

Band-aid on a severed artery, anyone?

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What California needs is some of that easy insurance money. Perhaps an induced earthquake. . . anybody know how to do that??

Considering where California stands as a nation in terms of GNP, you'd think they would have learned how to manage their money by now.

Of course, if you live in California it's a great opportunity to pick up all those little odds and ends you never thought you'd be able to get...

mscelina said:

Considering where California stands as a nation in terms of GNP, you'd think they would have learned how to manage their money by now.

Of course, if you live in California it's a great opportunity to pick up all those little odds and ends you never thought you'd be able to get...

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God forbid they cut any rathole spending programs. New Jersey and New York will follow on cue I'm sure...

mscelina said:

Considering where California stands as a nation in terms of GNP, you'd think they would have learned how to manage their money by now.

Of course, if you live in California it's a great opportunity to pick up all those little odds and ends you never thought you'd be able to get...

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Well, yes. But a) we are in a huge recession, and b) while the legislature deserves a huge amount of the blame, the voters of California deserve a large share also for too much ballot-box budgeting that has handcuffed the legislature to a certain extent. Add in a 2/3 requirement to pass a budget, which pretty much gives the opposition veto power over the budget, and you get a big mess in which both sides' excesses get passed in good economic times when there's lots of revenue, and it's next to impossible to get an agreement on cleaning up the mess in bad times.

And the voters here seem to be unwilling to fix what they have done, or even to recognize their own culpability.

And I'm including myself in that criticism - I've voted for some of the ballot-box budgeting measures that have messed up the flexibility in state spending.

Lost World said:

God forbid they cut any rathole spending programs. New Jersey and New York will follow on cue I'm sure...

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The #1 rathole spending problem in California is the state prison system. We have gone from around 20,000 inmates in 1980 to 167,000 now. But we haven't funded adequate new prison construction, and the state prison medical system was in such shambles that the federal courts took it over because it was providing unconstitutionally poor care. It's going to take several billion dollars the state doesn't have to fix that. The prison population is more than double the design capacity of the prisons.

If you've increased your prison population eightfold in three decades, you have either 1)a major breakdown in the fabric of your society or 2)a massive failure of the political system, particularly in the enforcement/judicial component.

In some way, society and government have taken off on radically different paths.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with society consuming more drugs while government has become more intolerant of that consumption. Is it society's job to march to government's drum, or should society be setting the pace?

Society was setting the pace, as clintl pointed out. The people of California voted themselves high services and low taxes.

So I'm not surprised things turned out the way they did.

Don said:

If you've increased your prison population eightfold in three decades, you have either 1)a major breakdown in the fabric of your society or 2)a massive failure of the political system, particularly in the enforcement/judicial component.

In some way, society and government have taken off on radically different paths.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with society consuming more drugs while government has become more intolerant of that consumption. Is it society's job to march to government's drum, or should society be setting the pace?

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The crime rate is down, not up. What's changed is the length of sentences. And yes, the drug laws, although California voters did pass a law diverting first time users into treatment programs instead of prisons a few years ago.

By the way, if I wasn't sick this weekend, I'd be tempted to go over and check it out. It sounds like some people are getting good deals.

clintl said:

The #1 rathole spending problem in California is the state prison system. We have gone from around 20,000 inmates in 1980 to 167,000 now. But we haven't funded adequate new prison construction, and the state prison medical system was in such shambles that the federal courts took it over because it was providing unconstitutionally poor care. It's going to take several billion dollars the state doesn't have to fix that. The prison population is more than double the design capacity of the prisons.

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Definitely so. And of that 167K I'm willing to bet that the national average of prisoners who are illegal aliens (around 33%) is much higher in California.

Romantic Heretic said:

Society was setting the pace, as clintl pointed out. The people of California voted themselves high services and low taxes.

So I'm not surprised things turned out the way they did.

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The people voted lower taxes.

The legislature voted higher services.

Because the California Assembly doesn't give a rat's ass about what their tax-paying constituents want.

clintl said:

The crime rate is down, not up. What's changed is the length of sentences. And yes, the drug laws, although California voters did pass a law diverting first time users into treatment programs instead of prisons a few years ago.

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Could the crime be DOWN because so many people who might otherwise be committing crimes are locked up?

Susan G.

Susan Gable said:

Could the crime be DOWN because so many people who might otherwise be committing crimes are locked up?

Susan G.

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That's what the conservatives argue. The thing is, crime is down everywhere from the levels of the 1970s. It seems to me that there's a lot more to it than simply longer prison sentences.

Oh, and dclary - voters are as much to blame for demanding high service as the legislature is for granting it. Don't fool yourself about that. The longer prison sentences, guaranteed minimum funding for schools, early childhood education, mental health programs, after school programs (which have never been funded), etc. are all things voters either demanded or directly approved by initiative.

Bird of Prey said:

What California needs is some of that easy insurance money. Perhaps an induced earthquake. . . anybody know how to do that??

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Yes, it's described in the novel "State of Fear."

clintl said:

The crime rate is down, not up. What's changed is the length of sentences. And yes, the drug laws, although California voters did pass a law diverting first time users into treatment religious indoctrination programs instead of prisons a few years ago.

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Just correcting a common misconception.